Visa Inc. has announced the appointment of two new members to its Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) team. Bevan Smith and Rebecca Chiume join VISA SSA’s Risk and Consumer Products divisions respectively, and the new appointees will both be based in Visa’s South Africa offices.
Bevan Smith has joined Visa as its new Head of Risk for Sub-Saharan Africa, and he will be based in the Johannesburg office. Prior to joining Visa, Smith spent 18 months as the Head of Risk for Retail Business Bank at Absa. In his role at Absa he was responsible for first-line defense capabilities for Distribution, Coverage and Operations for the retail business bank, including the business and private bank segments.
Smith is an accomplished Risk leader with a deep focus in financial services, control frameworks and risk management. He has held several Head of Risk roles managing the Africa operations of the Barclays Shared Services, and Investec Private Bank; in addition to working as a consultant for PwC and Accenture.
As Head of Risk for Visa’s Sub-Saharan Africa region, Smith will be responsible for all aspects of Risk for his markets such as payment system, and enterprises risk; and will work with other members of the risk team on Credit Settlement Risk. He will also be part of the CEMEA Risk Leadership Team and Sub-Saharan Africa LT.
Rebecca Chiume joins the Visa team as Director Consumer Products SA and will be part of the Core Products Business Unit. Prior to joining Visa, Chiume was at Standard Bank SA as Head: Middle Markets, and before that she was Senior Business Manager in the same organisation. Her initial position at Standard Bank SA was as a Customer Insights Manager (supporting the Business, Commercial and Natural Resources teams).
Chiume has seven years of formal experience in the financial sector garnered in the analytical, strategic and managerial spheres within Retail, Business and Commercial banking. She specifically cut her working teeth in financial services with FNB as a Quantitative Analyst and then moved into the role of a Product Manager. She also worked in the Card Acquiring (Merchant) space as both Head Retention Manager and Solutions Strategist.
