Future of Business: Standard Bank’s CEO on Driving Sustainable Growth and Shared Prosperity

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In uncertain times, leaders at all levels can learn from what the world's leading CEOs are doing to protect their companies from risk and forge a path forward. In this Future of Business series, IdeaCast hosts Alison Beard and Adi Ignatius interview four chief executives from different industries and geographies to better understand where global business is going. In this episode, Alison speaks with Sim Tshabalala, the CEO of Standard Bank. He explains how his childhood in apartheid South Africa informed his decision to go into finance, why purpose drives the company's approach to everything from strategy to customer service, and the role he believes businesses like his must play in promoting sustainable growth.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Every second counts in sports, and AWS is changing the game.
0:04.5	From the NFL to the NBA and the PGA tour, the world's premier sports leagues are fueling innovation with AWS AI to give fans more of the insights they crave faster.
0:16.9	From predictive analytics to advanced stats, AWS is going beyond the box score.
0:21.8	Learn more at AWS.com slash sports.
0:36.5	I'm Alison Beard, and this is the HBR Ideacast.
0:40.3	Our goal of this show in Harvard Business Review in general is to bring you all the research
0:52.6	insights and advice you need to become a
0:54.5	better leader and push your organization forward. A big part of that is learning from practitioners,
1:00.1	the people running some of the world's most successful businesses, to see what they're doing
1:04.1	and where they think the world is going next. That's why each year we host HBR's Future of Business
1:09.6	Virtual Conference, bringing in leading CEOs from various industries to speak about hot topics like artificial intelligence,
1:16.6	geopolitical uncertainty, and corporate social responsibility.
1:19.9	On Thursdays for the next month, we'll be sharing some of those conversations here on IdeaCast,
1:24.6	giving you a view into strategy making and innovation at some of the world's top
1:28.3	companies and helping you see how you might apply their thinking to your own. First up is Sim Shabalala,
1:35.0	the CEO of Standard Bank, which is Africa's largest bank and biggest lender by assets. Sim grew up in
1:40.9	Soweta Township during South Africa's apartheid era, so he learned early on how
1:45.1	financial access, or the lack thereof, can improve or damage lives. After working as an attorney,
1:51.1	he joined Standard Bank in 2000, and over the next 13 years, worked his way up to the CEO role,
1:56.6	where he's overseen both geographic expansion and digital transformation.
2:06.1	I spoke with him about his journey to the C-suite, how Standard is navigating the new AI era,
2:11.8	and why businesses need a broader purpose, like promoting prosperity among underserved populations.
	...

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