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Hi, I'm Leanna Byrne, and you're listening to Business Daily Meets on the BBC World Service.

Today, from growing up on a farm to running one of South Africa's biggest banks,

we hear about the extraordinary life of Farni Titi, CEO of the multinational banking group

in Vestek. We learn how a life in farming seemed guaranteed until a chance event took him down a

different path. You really cannot see a way out. And thankfully, in my 12th year, my dad had a fight with his farm master,

and we left the farms completely. Why? After studying maths and working as a lecturer,

he cashed in his pension in his 30s. Success was not in any way guaranteed. Some of my colleagues thought the risk I was taking

was simply too high, but I really believed that I could make a success of it and I went for it.

And the tough decisions he's had to make as CEO of a global bank. When we decided to exit our business

in Australia, it was during COVID.

We were on teams talking to people about their future.

So it was extremely difficult because they were painful.

That's all coming up on Business Daily from the BBC.

So it's the early 1960s. South Africa's racial segregation and discrimination system is deeply entrenched.

Black people are being kept separate from white people. They're living in poor conditions and they have fewer opportunities in life.

In the rural province of the free state, a young Farni Titi is being raised on a farm with 13 siblings. There were 14 of us that were born at that time. And essentially, the idea then was we would work on the farms for the rest of our lives because that was the nature of the apartheid system at the time.

Grew up in object poverty, but with two parents in the household. That gave us as children a level

of security. And second, instilled values in us, because when you do have parents, it does

create a family structure and values can be

transmitted in that process. So despite the poverty, despite the harshness of the farm labour

system, despite the issues around apartheid, at least we were blessed to have a functional

...