Mike Davis, group CFO at Nedbank, delivered the keynote address at the 2025 Finance Indaba, where he reflected on how resilience remains essential to the future of finance.
On 16 October 2025, thousands of finance professionals converged at the Sandton Convention Centre for the Finance Indaba, billed as Africa’s biggest finance conference and expo. Attendees weaved between ballrooms and boardrooms to participate in sessions that featured themes such as cost optimisation, digital transformation, sustainability and the future of the CFO role. The venue was teeming with energy as finance professionals sought practical tools to navigate the changes in the profession.
The keynote session with Mike Davis, group CFO at Nedbank, opened the main stage and set the tone for the rest of the day. The 2024 CFO of the Year began by reflecting on his own career journey, which was marked by several mergers and acquisitions, including the integration of NBS, BOE and Nedbank. He shared vivid stories from past challenges to show that risk management and leadership are lessons learnt through experience.
“One of the toughest things for me was that decision to relocate to Johannesburg. You can imagine, when you move together through M&A activity, you end up in a position where you effectively end up competing for the same role when you merge organisations. You’ve got to put your head down and demonstrate through that process that you’re the right person for the job,” he said.
Mike then pivoted to the current challenges facing finance professionals, especially the role of AI and digital transformation. He revealed that Nedbank is running experimenting with about 50 AI use cases internally to enhance productivity. Although he acknowledged that the full impact is still unknown, he encouraged early adoption and experimentation.
“It will have a profound impact on the way that we run our portfolios and manage our businesses. We’re doing a lot of work with a number of vendors around the utilisation of AI. You need to embrace AI, figure out how it can equip us to do our roles better, more efficiently and effectively leverage better outcomes,” he explained.
Stand for something
Regarding cybersecurity, Mike was candid about the human risk in financial institutions. He explained that Nedbank uses red-team versus blue-team testing to explore vulnerabilities, adding that most breaches arise from social engineering rather than technical failures. In light of this, he stressed the importance of client education.
“As you leverage more and higher levels of tech, cybersecurity becomes even more relevant. We take cybersecurity very seriously within the organisation. With regards to clients, the most important thing is to continue to provide them the solutions to effectively protect themselves,” he said.
Notably, Mike linked values and sustainability, saying “values are not a slogan but a framework guiding every strategic unlock and operational choice”. He argued that in the era of external scrutiny and rising expectations, organisations that “stand for something” will command trust and resilience.
“In the case of Nedbank, we make it very clear we are a values-led organisation. Whether it be around integrity, respect, accountability, people-centred or client-led, you’ve got to have a set of values as an organisation if you want to stick around and be relevant into the future. We are effectively a values-led organisation, and we articulate that wherever we go,” he said.
Building businesses that last
Also front of mind was the modern CFO role, which attendees mentioned as a major draw of the event. Mike urged younger finance professionals to rotate through the front, middle and back office, noting that broad exposure gives insight into how value is created. He advised today’s leaders to be translators between strategy and risk rather than mere guardians of the numbers.
“Even if you want to end up being a CFO one day, you’ve got to learn the front end of the business, be exposed to the middle office and to the back office. You’ve got to get that all-round exposure if you want to end up as part of the C-suite in due course,” he said.
When asked about timing of debt issuance or managing currency risk, Mike advocated for matching risk to capacity, being transparent with stakeholders and maintaining liquidity buffers. He spoke candidly about past missteps and how those experiences resulted in a more conservative approach at Nedbank. The seasoned executive emphasised accountability while embracing disruption.
“You can have the best systems, the best AI and the best processes, but if you lose integrity, you lose everything. For me, it’s about making sure we stay grounded even as we innovate, that we keep people at the centre of what we do. That’s how we’ll keep building organisations that last,” he said.
