Abigail Mukhuba might have entered the world of finance by chance, but once she got started there was no stopping this woman with the steely resolve. She had set herself the goal to become the finance director of a JSE-listed company by the age of 40, which she achieved when she was appointed chief financial officer of Africa Rainbow Minerals (ARM) in December 2017.
Resolve is often the inverse of a good dose of stubbornness. This was clear from Abigail’s decision not to apply to any university in her matric year at Jeppe High School in Johannesburg after she had set her heart on going to Rhodes University in Grahamstown but her mother, Matodzi, refused, not wanting her daughter to be so far away from her. This after Abigail had spent the better part of her childhood with her grandparents in Venda and only joined her teacher mother in Johannesburg five years before.
Consequently, the only option open to her was to register for a correspondence course at the University of South Africa. Having received career guidance in class, Abigail thought she wanted to study for a BA degree. After waiting for hours at the BA registration desk, they noticed that the line for a Bachelor of Accounting Science (BCompt) degree was much shorter and that is how Abigail ended up studying to become a bean-counter.
She didn’t know it at the time, but she realised in the course of her studies that she was quite good at crunching numbers. She obtained her BCompt in 1999 and graduated with an Honours degree in accounting at the then Rand Afrikaans University the following year. In 2001, she joined KPMG for articles. All trainees had a burning desire to join the financial services audit division which was perceived to be the preserve of the crème de la crème of the firm. Abigail was not but this set her on a different path, which gave her international working experience and gave her a better idea as to what she wanted out of her career.
After being deployed to the German Business Group she had DaimlerChrysler as a client. When BMW started their articles programme in 2003, Abigail cancelled her KPMG contract and moved to the carmaker. She had realised she did not enjoy the auditing process that much as it did not give her sufficient insight into the real business engines. She was posted to BMW’s Munich office in 2006 but started to miss home after a few months…perhaps her mother was right after all about distance!
Seeking to work in a proudly South African company, in 2007 she joined Exxaro and entered the mining industry. She eventually worked at Exxaro for nine years where she learnt many important lessons, including about crisis management and perseverance.
When Riaan Koppeschaar was appointed CFO of Exxaro in 2015, Abigail realised that she was unlikely to realise her dream of becoming the CFO of a listed company by the age of 40 if she stayed at the company. So, when the opportunity to join ARM came about in 2016, she did not hesitate to make the move.
While Exxaro is predominantly a coal mining business, ARM has investments in a variety of resources which promised to broaden Abigail’s experience. She was appointed Finance Director of ARM a year later after her predecessor Mike Arnold retired from the position to become a Non-Executive Director.
Moving to Sanlam meant changing to a completely different industry. For Abigail it was a ‘crazy transition’.
‘When I submitted my résumé, COVID-19 had not yet hit South Africa. It has made my transition difficult, not only because of the impact on financial performance but because of being unable to engage with my team physically. It is not easy to figure out who is who in the zoo and develop relationships over Zoom.’
