Sakhumzi Diza

Sakhumzi Diza is the acting CRO – Credit of Land Bank in South Africa and was appointed in September 2016 as GM Corporate Credit and Structured Investments; (Acting CRO-Credit from 7 January 2019).

He holds the following qualifications: Bsc Agric Economics; Honours Agricultural Economics, Masters in agricultural Economics, and training in Mergers & Acquisition, Private Equity training programs from GIBS.

Sakhumzi Diza is qualified agricultural economist and he has a diverse range of experience in development, corporate, commercial finance and managerial skills within credit granting environment. He started his career as agricultural economist in 2002 managing development projects in the Western Cape-linking small scale farmers to markets and access to technical support via large scale players and value chain role players. He subsequently joined ABSA Bank as an agri-specialist in agri-business finance focusing on medium business segments, and development finance and later moved to Land Bank where he served in various roles such as investment specialist, head of sales team, and credit manager. After his stint at Land Bank he further moved to Standard Bank as part of a senior credit team in the Agri-Business unit, responsible for the RSA agri-business portfolio where he held personal lending mandate for Large Agri-Business segment extending loans to (Mega farmers, Agro-processors & Agribusinesses in South Africa), mentoring and guiding credit managers & risk managers within the agribusiness portfolio during his six year tenure at the Bank.

He has strong track record in deal origination, credit granting across all segments, small, medium and large agri-businesses, structuring using various funding instruments such as debt, hybrid products such as (mezzanine or preference shares), equity instruments, and has exposure in overall risk management.