By Fiona Wakelin
Nyimpini Mabunda started his career at Procter and Gamble, then joined Diageo, where he worked for 15 years in three different countries: South Africa, the United Kingdom and Uganda. His first executive suite role was as CEO of Uganda Breweries – after which he was appointed CEO at Vodacom for Consumer Business. Nyimpini’s latest role, before starting as Chairperson at Schindler SA, was with General Electric as a CEO for Southern Africa.
We asked him to unpack his role as Chairperson of Schindler SA.
“I think by and large, my role is to make sure that the board of directors works - for me it is important to make sure that the team is diverse, well recruited and operates well in terms of adding value to management.
The second thing is to ensure the sustainability of the organisation through succession planning and providing the long term strategy. And then there is the issue of governance. I want to be careful to emphasise that it actually goes beyond governance - hence we have audit committees, as well as risk and compliance committees. That's a big part of making sure that organisations do the right thing and continue to have the reputation for doing the right thing, which in turn ensures sustainability.”