It's a bit of a joke in journalism that a single event is happenstance, but if it happens twice, suddenly it's a 'trend'. It would be hard to make a case that a few instances of job-hopping in the banking industry constitute a major crisis in South Africa at the moment. But in some ways, it does demonstrate some underlying tension.

Listen to this article 5 min Listen to this article 5 min You have to feel a bit for Standard Bank, which lost a senior leader. But Absa, which has in effect had a new CEO every year for the past six years, was clearly desperate and, one presumes, made Kenny Fihla an offer he could not refuse.

Absa have themselves been losers recently when their finance director and interim CEO Jason Quinn left for Nedbank last year. In February this year, Standard Chartered named Maria Ramos, the former CEO of South Africa's Absa Group, as its new chair, succeeding José Viñals. And going further back, Basani Maluleke left African Bank to join Capitec in 2021.

What do we make of all this? Well, what employees often say about hopscotching executives is that they are playing a game, switching titles and getting bigger bonuses, while the only thing that really moves is the workload on the people who actually do the work. That increases.

It's a bit of a joke in journalism that a single event is happenstance, but if it happens twice, suddenly it's a "trend". It would be hard to make a case that a few instances of...