Bongi Kunene

Director and Head of Public Sector Banking, Standard Bank South Africa

Bongi Kunene is a director and head of public sector banking at Standard Bank South Africa. She is responsible for the bank’s portfolio comprising municipal finance; provincial government development finance; financing of national, provincial and municipal owned entities, and banking services for social sectors including education and health. Prior to joining Standard Bank, Bongi worked as an economist, development finance specialist, practitioner in economic regulation, civil servant, researcher, and policy maker in positions based in South Africa and the United States. She was part of the South African Presidential team that worked on a response to the global financial crisis response from 2008. In that role she provided support to the President’s Economic Adviser on the G20. She is a member of the board of South African National Parks, chairing the Audit and Risk Committee. She holds an MSc (Development Economics) from London University, United Kingdom. She did her undergraduate studies at the University of Zululand, South Africa. She is a Fellow of the third class of the Africa Leadership Initiative-South Africa and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.