Sanlam Investment Management CFO Taskeen Ismail has a refreshingly different take on leadership which benefits her team, her business and the people her industry ultimately serves.
Taskeen Ismail does not fit the stereotype of a CFO and her path into finance was neither linear nor planned. “I never wanted to be in financial services. I always had my heart set on being a marine biologist,” she says. But after discovering what they earn, she realised she would never be able to retire comfortably.
Still, the ocean, and later, Muay Thai, would become lifelong anchors, shaping how she leads, makes decisions, manages pressure and maintains perspective at the helm of one of South Africa’s largest investment businesses.
Today, Taskeen has more than 19 years of experience across corporate finance, risk management, strategic analysis and M&A at Sanlam and Old Mutual, with formative training at PwC. Her career is defined by versatility, systems thinking and a deeply human approach to leadership. Yet the story of how she returned to Sanlam and why she ultimately accepted the CFO role she once resisted reveals just how unconventional her path has been.
Taskeen’s connection to Sanlam goes back more than two decades, to her school years. “I was awarded a Sanlam bursary in Grade 11,” she recalls. In exchange, she worked in the group (at Santam) after qualifying as a CA which ultimately shaped her entire professional trajectory.
She then moved to Old Mutual, built a substantial career in M&A, and then, a decade later, found herself drawn back “home”.
This step in her career, she says, is an example of doors opening just when she needed them. “I’ve been quite blessed to have had exposure to really big industry heavyweights as coaches, mentors, bosses, colleagues,” she says, and this pattern of unexpected opportunities would again shape the moment she stepped into a role she once believed she would never take on.
Shifting perceptions
Despite her experience across risk, strategy and M&A, Taskeen resisted the idea of becoming a CFO for most of her career. “I did not want to be a CFO,” she remembers telling every coach, recruiter and mentor. The traditional version of the role with predictable monthly cycles of reporting felt stifling to her. “I thought I’d last maybe six months. I’d be bored out of my mind,” she says of her perceptions of a CFO role.
That shifted, however, when Sanlam’s head of human capital suggested she meet the CEO of Sanlam Investments. The conversation turned out to be catalytic. “Twenty minutes into that conversation, the two of us looked at each other saying, ‘This actually could work’. It’s not a traditional CFO position. It’s a very strategic CFO position.”
Taskeen describes that moment now as a turning point, not only because the role aligned with her strategic instincts, but because it offered room to redefine what a CFO could be.
“I’m so glad that I did actually take this role up because I discovered it is what you make of the role. That’s been pleasantly surprising.”
Stepping into the CFO role, she decided to shape it according to her own values: grounded, strategic, human-centred and fundamentally different from the traditional mould. As such, Taskeen’s approach to finance is built on systems thinking – a rare but powerful perspective in the CFO world.
Seeing the whole picture
“Being a CFO is all about making sense of the numbers in a way that is helpful so that you make better decisions,” she says. This involves zooming in and out across multiple layers: “You look at the system as simple as one little process within the finance area, then at the system of the team itself, then at the whole Sanlam Investment Group. Then you look at the whole Sanlam Group, plus our peers in the financial services industry. Then there’s the broader system of how the country is doing, and then how the continent is doing etc,” she explains.
It is this ability to see interconnected systems and her refusal to focus only on balance-sheet mechanics that differentiates her as a CFO. “You cannot just look at one little process in one little system,” she adds. “You actually have to understand that total global picture and where your little block fits in that massive puzzle.”
This outward view naturally leads her to the end-user: the client whose retirement, dignity and long-term wellbeing sit at the end of every investment decision.
Taskeen’s decision to join Sanlam Investments was grounded in something deeper than career advancement: purpose. Having watched family members work hard their entire lives but still struggle to retire comfortably, she felt compelled to understand the industry’s full value chain.
This drove her to look beyond margins for their own sake, but also at outcomes for ordinary South Africans. “Understanding those economics is actually the only way that you can improve the system,” she says. Her ambition is “to make sure that those who don’t have access to this industry and these types of products, get access to it and for those who are doing all the right things, they should be able to retire in dignity”.
She calls it “a very lofty ambition,” but adds that “to be able to make a small difference in those two spaces, I can then die happy”.
This purpose-driven approach is not only philosophical and client-focused, it also directs how she leads her people.
Leadership grounded in humanity, autonomy and psychological safety
Taskeen’s leadership style is shaped by how others led her: with trust, psychological safety, and empowerment. “I love giving people autonomy,” she says, “because that is exactly what made me step-change my career.”
She speaks openly about mistakes and how senior leaders taught her the importance of appropriate accountability and the difference between serious mistakes and learning moments. “In my early career I’d have very senior individuals who would apologise on my behalf, but never indicate that it was me that actually made the mistake. And then we could have a quiet conversation afterwards. That safety net gave me so much more confidence to take on things that I knew were way over my head.”
Today she recreates the same environment of independence paired with protection in her own team.
This sees her prioritising mental health and transparency about pressure – an honesty she believes is lacking in financial services. “You have to be very good at talking about what is impacting you. What I find is that we don’t acknowledge when we’re under stress. Suddenly someone will fall over – either a heart attack or mental health goes out the window. And by then it’s too late, your body is already screaming at you. There’s a physical consequence for you for not actually addressing it properly.”
She believes that a root cause of this is not always understanding the difference between knowing what should be concerning and letting go of what should not be. “We are always going to be juggling balls. The plastic balls, you should be comfortable to let one or two of those drop but you have to be very clear on what the glass balls are and at the same time know that the glass balls, you do not drop.”
She acknowledges that things get overwhelming from time to time and when they do, she steps away to work from home or gain perspective. “Everyone around me is very forgiving when that happens, and we try and do that for each other. It goes a long way to try and manage some of the stress in the system. You have to, otherwise you won’t survive.”
This emphasis on humanity, autonomy and emotional honesty lays the foundation for how she approaches technology and disruption.
A realistic, strategic and human AI relationship
“I am definitely not a techie,” Taskeen says. “My favourite question is: did you switch it off and on again?” she jokes. Yet she is adamant that AI “is absolutely critical”.
Her perspective is not hype-driven, but grounded, pragmatic and long-term. “The speed at which data refinement and AI is moving is faster than you can actually keep up. The opportunity is huge for people to use that properly,” she says, warning that businesses must be aware of the potential downfalls: “In the way that you make use of AI, you sometimes bring in unconscious biases. So the kind of output and the information that it spits out might be completely divorced from what is actually happening on the inside. So you have to be quite careful that you’re getting that balance right.”
When used correctly, she says, it has the ability to enhance her big picture view of finance. “Excel will take you so far. Your own capacity and ability to calculate is only going to take you so far. You need to be able to use these tools just to understand the world that you are sitting in and how all of those systems actually play together,” she says.
She also warns against focusing only on the short term saying: “We tend to underestimate what the medium- to long-term impact is, and we overestimate the short-term impact. You need to plan for the five- to ten-year timeframe, not the one- to two-year.”
Human anchors
Whether taking a view on AI or managing her team, Taskeen’s ability to lead with clarity and presence is rooted in the rituals and passions that exist far outside the boardroom.
The ocean is where she returns to be at peace. “Just driving past the beach and seeing the ocean and watching waves along Sea Point is enough to mentally reset me.”
Her love for diving comes from her father. “He had a very good group of friends who he used to scuba dive with and from when I was a toddler I’d get dragged along to the ocean whenever the guys were going to do a scuba dive trip. So we grew up literally amongst that environment – always in the ocean. When you’re underneath that water, it’s quite shocking that it’s there, but you don’t know what’s underneath until you’re actually underneath. It’s a completely different world,” she says.
On land, her escape comes from Muay Thai and the power, confidence and release it provides. “I started doing Muay Thai, which is Thai kickboxing. I actually went to Thailand to do proper Muay Thai at a Thai gym in 2024 (which was a lifelong dream for me),” she explains.
For her, this form of physicality provides far more than a work out. “You hold all your frustrations in until you get home and then you’re on the bag for five minutes and it is the best stress release on earth because you tire yourself out with all of your aggression trying to punch this bag,” she says.
While personal time is pivotal, family is just as important to her. Every evening, she and her husband carve out 30 minutes to decompress. “We have a ritual – at least half an hour every single evening where we’ll sit down, we’ll probably eat in front of the TV, but we’ll watch something silly. And when I say something silly, it cannot be intellectually challenging. It has to be something comedic so that we can laugh with each other and destress from the day.”
For Taskeen, these rituals aren’t just hobbies but they are the backbone of her leadership. They keep her grounded, emotionally present, and able to lead with empathy. “That combination works for me. I’ve never been in a sufficiently stressful environment where any of those three were not able to sort it out very quickly,” she says.
