After 10 years of being CEO at Deloitte Africa, On Tuesday 31st May Lwazi Bam finally retires.
“It’s been a big run for ten years, 28 years at the same firm. It’s time to have new blood,” says outgoing Deloitte CEO Lwazi Bam, a day before he officially retired.
Lwazi Bam has been Deloitte Africa CEO for three terms, an anomaly for an auditing firm, where CEOs normally serve for two terms. But when his second term was supposed to end in May 2019, the partners voted for him to stay longer.
At the time, the firm was facing a reputational crisis. Steinhoff’s Dutch shareholders were suing Deloitte for alleged failures in picking up fraud in the disgraced retailer’s financial statements. PwC had just released its forensic investigation report showing that Tongaat Hulett misstated its assets, inflating its financial position by almost R12 billion. Deloitte was Tongaat’s auditor. (Deloitte was also African Bank’s auditor before it was placed under curatorship.)
