The Government Institutions Pensions Fund (GIPF ) is in the market hunting for a new Chief Executive Officer/Principal Officer amid indications that the incumbent CEO, David Nuyoma, will retire in June next year.
Nuyoma takes a bow after serving 10 years at the helm of the country’s biggest pension fund, whose asset base grew by 8.6% to N$147.9 billion for the financial year ended 31 March 2022, up from N$136.2 billion recorded in the comparable period.
“As per the Fund Rules, the CEO/PO role will be appointed by the GIPF Board of Trustees, based on the GIPF Recruitment, Selection and Termination policy. To this end, the recruitment and selection process has been approved to commence. GIPF is committed to undertake an objective, fair, open, and competitive recruitment process and distances itself from past social media reports insinuating that there are candidates earmarked for the position. The process will be facilitated by an independent, expert recruitment agency,” GIPF Board of Trustees Chairperson Nillian Mulemi said on Tuesday.
“The GIPF regards recruitment as a key strategic function and therefore the selection process shall be conducted based on an efficient, fair and transparent manner that the policy prescribes.”
The early recruitment of a successor is aimed at allowing a transition process and a smooth handover.
The Fund has already extended Nuyoma’s employment contract by six months to June 2023. The CEO’s tenure was due to end this December, a time when he will also turn 60.
Nuyoma is largely credited for the growth of the Fund, which has grown its asset base by nearly threefold from a mere N$50 billion in 2013 to the current N$145 billion plus.
Before becoming the head of GIPF, his career as a financial and economics expert started in 1989 when he worked with an entity called Repatriation, Resettlement and Reconstruction, an association of the Council of Churches in Namibia serving along with the United Nations to reintegrate returning refugees.
Thereafter, Nuyoma joined the Ministry of Industrialisation and Trade as an assistant to the then Minister Ben Amadhila, and later became a Chief Economist in the same Ministry.
He later joined the Namibia Development Corporation in 1994, then returned to the Trade Ministry as an Executive Director for investment development, thereafter becoming the founding CEO of the Development Bank of Namibia from November 2003 to December 2012.
