Job Advert Summary

The Land and Agricultural Development Bank of South Africa (Land Bank) is South Africa’s only specialist agricultural bank established in 1912, the bank’s sole objective is to serve South African commercial and emerging farmers and bring specially designed financial services within their reach. These services enable farmers to finance land, equipment, improve assets and obtain production credit. The Land Bank provides financial services that have moved with the times and continues to provide services to agri-business and constantly reviews its offerings to ensure that they match the needs of an industry. As change has swept across the sector in South Africa the socio-economic makeup of agriculture has altered, bringing new entrants from historically disadvantaged backgrounds on to the land, these new farmers, facing the challenges of establishing sustainable agri-businesses across the agricultural value chain, Land Bank has been a commercial lifeline offering appropriately designed financial products that facilitate personal and commercial viability in a sector that is vital to the sustainability of South Africa and its people.
MAIN PURPOSE OF THE JOB
To manage the Commercial Banking and Transformation Regions and provide leadership to ensure that key strategic objectives are met. Is responsible for adopting and optimising a best fit operational model with the appropriate finance, governance and risk framework and controls, and ensure alignment with the Bank's guidelines, policies and legislation. Needs to lead and drive a focused client segmentation with segment-appropriate service models and client value propositions to facilitate the business growth and build positive returns of the Commercial Banking and Transformation segment (from emerging commercial farmers to existing medium and large commercial farmer markets) at a regional level. Required to embed efficient processes and customer service standards in order to improve the experiences of customers in the area of responsibility as well as establish and maintain effective partner and stakeholder relationships to leverage support and enable the implementation of the customer value proposition for the Commercial Banking and Transformation customer segment.

Key Performance Areas

1. Facilitate Development Transformation Of The Agricultural Sector (Developmental Effectiveness)

• Develop the operational plan annually to achieve contracted / targeted growth and cascade targets to Regional team.
• Implement the operational plan through Provincial Heads and ensure alignment at Regional level.
• Continuously review and track the execution of the Operational Plan to spot any deviations or issues, and make necessary adjustments as needed.

2. Growth, Profitability and Financial Performance ( Financial Sustainability)

• Drive growth of the Commercial Banking and Transformation segment (as per the client segmentation model which includes emerging commercial farmers, existing medium and large commercial farmer markets) at a regional level.
  • Ensure growth of the loan book.
• Drive the achievement of agreed financial sustainability and profitability plan for the Region.
  • Measure of cost to income ratio to ensure positive portfolio health.
  • Track non-interest revenue at a regional level.
• Develop and execute integrated sales, relationship, and portfolio growth strategies that are aligned with the business plan to achieve targets and other agreed objectives at Regional level.
• Ensure that the appropriate quality of business is procured for the Region.

3. Client Relationship Management and Preservation Strategy (Stakeholder Management And Client Centricity)

• Deliver the agreed component of the Banking’s customer value proposition in the Region.
• Create a strong customer service culture, fostering an environment in which the Region (and Provincial Offices) work together to achieve all customer standards in the scorecard goals.
• Drive efforts in the Region to identify and implement service behaviours that improve the overall customer experience.
• Resolve escalated customer complaints/issues promptly and effectively.

4. Stakeholder Relationship Management (Stakeholder Management and Client centricity)

• Ensure there is effectiveness of collaboration with internal stakeholders to ensure that business needs are being met.
• Liaise with key stakeholders internally to support appropriate agreements when required.
• Build synergy with other divisions within the Bank.

5. People management (Organisational effectiveness)

• Define employee training and development plans for the region.
• Ensure ethical behaviour of employees.
• Ensure employee satisfaction and good culture.
• Ensure ethical employee behaviour.

6. Process Improvements (Organisational effectiveness)

• Ensure there is ongoing evaluation of operations, with input provided as potential areas of improvement are identified to improve the efficiency of recommended improvements to systems and processes to meet defined professional standards.
• Ensure high quality of performance and output of teams.
• Ensure improvement for core processes.

7. Governance, enterprise risk management , and compliance (Governance)

• Act as first point of contact for audit, risk, compliance and business continuity and control environment.
• Provide input into the formulation of policies, systems, processes, and procedures to promote operational excellence.
• Make the necessary procedure amendments in line with changes to bank wide policy.

Preferred Minimum Education and Experience

• 4 Year Degree in Commerce, Business Management, or other relevant and equivalent qualification in Banking and Financial Services
• Experience in Development Finance or Commercial Banking environment - 6 to 10 years
• Experience at managerial level which includes a role in customer-facing profit making business units - 6 to 10 years
  - Experience in an Agricultural business environment - 5 years
  - Banking or Commercial environment - 5 years
  - Senior Managerial level - 5 years

Critical Competencies

• Microsoft Office
• Business operations, business processes, management, budgeting, and business office operations.
• Accounting Principles
• Credit / Lending / Loan Assessment (Due Diligence & Financial Modelling)
• Financial Analysis
• Customer service orientation
• Financial / Business Acumen

Additional Requirements

• Extended hours as and when required
• Willing to travel extensively