South African banking giant Absa Group's Kenny Fihla earns $7.6 million in first year as CEO

Kenny Fihla collected R128.04 million ($7.62 million) in total remuneration from Absa Group in 2025, his first year as the pan-African lender's chief executive, with buyout awards compensating him for incentives forfeited when he left Standard Bank Group in June 2025 accounting for the dominant share of the figure.

The breakdown, disclosed in Absa's executive directors' remuneration table, shows a package structured around the complexity of moving between 2 of Africa's largest financial institutions mid-year. Of the R128.04 million total, R98.42 million came from buyout components: a cash-based award of R20.72 million ($1.23 million) representing the value of Standard Bank incentives that had already vested at the time he departed, and a share-based award of R77.7 million ($4.62 million) on a face-value basis reflecting unvested Standard Bank awards he forfeited by leaving early.

Absa was explicit about what those awards represented. "His cash-based buyout award in respect of forfeited share awards in his previous employer that had already vested is reflected as such in the table and was paid to him during 2025 upon joining the group," the bank stated in its remuneration disclosure. "His share-based buyout award in respect of forfeited share awards at his previous employer are reflected."

The remaining components of Fihla's 2025 Absa package were significantly smaller by comparison. His fixed remuneration, covering salary, medical aid, retirement fund contributions and related allowances, came to R6.28 million ($373,700), of which salary alone was R5.7 million ($340,000). Short-term incentives, split between cash awards of R12.15 million ($723,000) and deferred share awards of R11.15 million ($663,500), totalled R23.3 million ($1.39 million). Long-term incentive awards, including the value of vested share instruments and dividend equivalents on those vested positions, added R8 million ($476,000).

What Standard Bank paid him on the way out

Fihla's Standard Bank compensation in 2025 covered only the 6 months before his June departure. That partial-year figure came to R5.15 million ($306,500), made up of a salary of R3.94 million, employer retirement fund contributions of R388,000 and other benefits and allowances of R825,000, which included a leave payment of R746,000 triggered by his exit.

He also forfeited his 2024 deferred incentive award from Standard Bank in full when he left in June 2025, closing out his financial relationship with his former employer entirely. His 2024 Standard Bank remuneration, covering his full year in the roles of CEO of Standard Bank South Africa and deputy chief executive of Standard Bank Group, was R67.3 million ($4 million) -- a figure that gives context for the scale of what he walked away from by making the move.

Who Fihla is

Fihla was born in Johannesburg and built his banking career almost entirely within the Standard Bank system over more than 2 decades, rising through a series of senior roles before reaching the top of the South African banking unit and eventually the group's deputy chief executive position. He is a Chartered Accountant who started his career in audit at KPMG before crossing into financial services.

His appointment as Absa Group CEO was announced in April 2025 and took effect fully in June 2025 once his Standard Bank obligations were discharged. Since taking the role, he has focused visibly on deepening Absa's pan-African commercial relationships, making roadshow visits to Zambia and Kenya and signalling an intent to accelerate the group's presence in markets beyond its South African home base. Absa operates across 12 African countries and posted a profit after tax of R21.1 billion ($1.26 billion) for 2025.

The structure of the pay

The concentration of Fihla's 2025 Absa remuneration in buyout awards rather than operating compensation is a standard feature of senior executive transitions across large financial institutions. When a bank hires a C-suite executive from a competitor mid-cycle, it typically compensates the incoming leader for whatever unvested awards they forfeit by leaving, both to make the economics of the move workable and to ensure the bank is not effectively transferring value to its competitor by leaving a key hire worse off financially.

In Fihla's case, the buyout structure means that R98.42 million of his R128.04 million total for 2025 was essentially a one-time payment linked to the transition, not a reflection of his annual operating compensation at Absa. His fixed salary of R5.7 million and total short-term incentives of R23.3 million are the more representative measures of what his recurring package looks like at the bank, adjusted upward in future years as his tenure lengthens and long-term incentive awards begin to mature.

The total figure of R128.04 million makes him one of the highest-paid banking executives in Africa for 2025, though the context of the buyout awards means direct year-on-year comparisons with his successors or peers in subsequent years will look materially different.