Vodacom recruits former JSE chief as chair succession begins

Former JSE CEO Leila Fourie

Vodacom Group has appointed former JSE CEO Leila Fourie to its board as an alternate director to chairman Saki Macozoma, with effect from 9 October 2026.

In a notice to shareholders on Tuesday, the group said Fourie will become a full member of the board once Macozoma retires in July 2027. She joins the board’s nomination and remuneration committees from 9 October.

An alternate director is a stand-in: they may attend, speak and vote at board meetings in place of the director they are appointed to, but hold no seat of their own until formally appointed. The arrangement gives Fourie more than nine months inside Vodacom’s governance structures before the seat becomes hers.

Fourie ran the JSE from October 2019 until her retirement on 31 March 2026, when she was succeeded by Valdene Reddy, previously the exchange’s director of capital markets. Announcing her departure in October 2025, the JSE credited her tenure with a turnaround in earnings quality, a more diversified revenue profile, and the modernisation of the exchange’s core technology and regulatory settings.

Before the JSE she was CEO of the Australian Payments Network and, earlier, MD of the card division at Standard Bank Group. She is an independent non-executive director of listed Australian payments company Cuscal, and her other board roles include the UN Global Compact and WWF South Africa. She holds a PhD in economic and financial sciences from the University of Johannesburg.

Fast-growing business

Those skills will prove helpful to Vodacom. Financial services has become its fastest-growing business: the group’s fintech operations reached 103 million active customers in FY2026, processing US$525.6-billion in transactions and generating R16.8-billion in revenue, or 12.6% of group service revenue. CEO Shameel Joosub has since raised Vodacom’s Vision 2030 target for financial services customers to 130 million from 120 million.

In South Africa, where Vodacom has built out VodaPay alongside insurance and lending products, the fintech business counted 15.3 million users at the end of FY2026.

News of the appointment comes amid a broader reshuffle driven by Vodacom’s self-imposed 10-year cap on board tenure. Macozoma, who joined the board in July 2017, hits that limit at the group’s AGM on 20 July 2027 and hands the chair to lead independent director Khumo Shuenyane the following day. Fourie’s elevation to a full seat is timed to the same handover.

In August, the group confirmed a series of board changes alongside the succession, including the appointment of former Airtel Africa CEO Segun Ogunsanya as an independent non-executive director from 9 October 2026 — the same day Fourie’s appointment takes effect — and the departure of Naspers South Africa CEO Phuthi Mahanyele-Dabengwa a day earlier.

Vodacom said the board had completed a fit-and-proper assessment of Fourie in line with the JSE listing requirements. — © 2026 NewsCentral Media