Absa Bank Kenya has poached from Stanbic Bank Kenya as it restructures its business, reflecting the rising competition for top talent in the banking industry.
Absa has appointed Renato D’souza as its director of business banking while moving Elizabeth Wasunna-Ochwa to the newly created position of director strategic partnerships.
Mr D’souza joined Absa at the beginning of the year from Stanbic Bank, a subsidiary of South African lending giant Standard Bank Group, where he worked for nine years, his last post being head of commercial banking.
Ms Wasunna will remain part of the bank's executive which will see the company's top leadership grow to 12 directors.
“Elizabeth is not leaving the bank but she will be in charge of deepening strategic partnerships that the bank has with key players such as National Chambers of Commerce, Kenya Private Sector Alliance and such; so the bank looked for a suitable suit to replace her in business banking,” said sources within the bank.
“The bank is not in a position to bring in more people but more of reorganising ourselves to keep growing by exploiting the existing relationships,” added the source.
Ms Wasunna had held the position for seven years. Absa books business from the small and medium sized enterprises and corporates under business banking.
Mr D’souza joins a list of top executives that Absa has poached from subsidiaries of Standard Bank Group.
Ms Wasunna was poached from Standard Bank of Malawi, with others –legal and compliance director Kenneth Kanyarati and chief risk officer Chiera Waithaka poached from Stanbic Kenya. Absa had a loan book of Sh309.7 billion as at end of September 2025 which was a drop compared to Sh311.4 billion a year earlier.
Top talent has been a major hunt in the banking industry as lenders seek to push for growth following a two-year period of slow credit growth and pile up of bad debts.
Its deposit base had grown to Sh384.3 billion from Sh351.7 billion over the same period showing the slow conversion of liabilities to assets.
Egyptian lender, Commercial International Bank recently poached NCBA Group's director of corporate and investment banking Tirus Mwithiga to head its Kenyan subsidiary.
SBM Bank meanwhile on May 8, 2024 appointed former I&M Group chief operating officer Bhartesh Shah as its new chief executive.
