Zim banker lands top Norfund post

The Norwegian Investment Fund for Developing Countries (Norfund) has poached top Zimbabwean banker Pindie Nyandoro to become its new regional director for Southern Africa.

The executive spent more than 19 years at Standard Bank Group. She was CEO of Standard Bank’s communication adviser Zimbabwe unit, Stanbic, for 5 years. She was elevated to regional CEO for 6 countries—Zambia, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Eswatini in the period 2008 to 2021.

Before that she worked for Standard Chartered Bank.

An enthusiastic newcomer to the development finance world, Nyandoro said she always admired development financial institutions (DFI) from a distance.

“When you’re African, and working with banks, you hear a lot about DFIs. So when the opportunity came, there was this history [for me]. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. It coincided with the fact that I liked the developmental, the impact side, that DFIs tend to have as part of their mandate,” the banker told Norfund’s   Indigo Trigg-Hauger

Asked how she thinks Norfund can make the most difference, Nyandoro said: “I think because I am African, Zimbabwean by birth, I believe that as a general rule there is just too much to be done and not enough people to do it. So Norfund is well placed to play a fairly significant role in changing lives within the continent. Especially when you look at the more mundane things that people take for granted. By that I’m looking at access firstly to infrastructure, so if you look at things like transport, energy, water, I think there’s a lot that Norfund has done, continues to do, and can do going forward. Changing lives, if I can call it that.”

She said there was a lot that could be done in terms of just making sure that the impact is actually noticeable and “we are able to build on that as opposed to making a difference and then leaving it at that and starting something completely different”.

“Build on what has been done in the past in making sure that the level of impact is a lot bigger than maybe what we have achieved previously,” the banker said.

Nyandoro said she was most excited to work with people as she finds it easy “to get along with people”.

“I feel I learn more from talking to people, not just formally, like in meetings, but over a bite. I’ve been training for the past three days, and the amount of knowledge I’ve learned about Norfund as an organisation, Norway as a country, and other places like Thailand, Costa Rica, the other countries where we have a presence has been absolutely amazing. This knowledge has come via informal channels like lunch time chats as opposed to sitting behind a desk or in a formal meeting,” she said.