Zarina Bassa is Executive Chairman of Songhai Capital and serves as a non-executive director of numerous companies and organisations, including Kumba Iron Ore, Vodacom South Africa, Sun International, Woolworths, Lewis Group, Oceana Group, National Business Initiative, Financial Services Board and Woolworths Financial Services of which she was immediate past-Chairperson. She is also Chairperson of Yebo Yethu Ltd.

Zarina was previously an Executive Director at Absa Bank and a member of the Absa Group Executive Committee, with accountability for Private Banking.

Prior to joining Absa in 2002, Zarina was a partner at Ernst & Young where she spent 17 years across the UK and SA offices. She qualified as a CA in 1988 and was amongst the first black female CA’s.

Zarina’s previous board roles include chairing the Public Accountants’ and Auditors’ Board, the Auditing Standards Board, the Accounting Standards Board, the JSE’s GAAP Monitoring Panel and the SA Institute of Chartered Accountants’ Board. She was also Vice President of Abasa.

Zarina was named Top Women in Business and Government in 2007 and Top Business Personality in Financial Services: Banking in 2008.