Laurie Dippenaar graduated from Pretoria University, qualified as a chartered accountant with Aiken & Carter (now KPMG) and spent three years with the Industrial Development Corporation before becoming a co-founder of Rand Consolidated Investments (“RCI”) in 1977. RCI acquired control of Rand Merchant Bank (“RMB”) in 1985 and he became an executive director. He was appointed managing director of RMB in 1988 which position he held until 1992 when RMB Holdings (“RMBH”) acquired a controlling interest in Momentum Life Assurers (“Momentum”). He served as executive chairman of that company from 1992 until the formation of FirstRand in 1998. He was appointed as the first chief executive of FirstRand and held this position until the end of 2005 when he assumed a non executive role. He was elected to the position of chairman of FirstRand Limited in November 2008.

Paul Harris graduated from the University of Stellenbosch and joined the Industrial Development Corporation. He was a co-founder of Rand Consolidated Investments (“RCI”) in 1977. RCI acquired control of Rand Merchant Bank (“RMB”) in 1985 and he became an executive director. He spent four years in Australia where he founded Australian Gilt Securities (later to become RMB Australia) and returned to South Africa in 1991 as deputy managing director of RMB. In 1992, he took over as chief executive officer. Subsequent to the formation of FirstRand, he was appointed chief executive officer of FirstRand Bank Holdings in 1999, a position he held until December 2005 when he was appointed chief executive officer of FirstRand. He will retire from his executive position at the end of December 2009.

Sizwe Nxasana started his career at Unilever. In 1989 he established Sizwe & Co, the first black-owned audit practice in Kwa-Zulu Natal. In 1996 he became the founding partner of Nkonki Sizwe Ntsaluba, the first black owned national firm of accountants, and was national managing partner until 1998 when he joined Telkom SA as chief executive officer. He held this position until August 2005.

His experience in the financial services industry includes being a non executive director of NBS Boland Bank from 1995 to 1998, a non executive director of the Development Bank of Southern Africa from 1995 to 1998 and chairman of Msele-Hoskens Insurance Group from 1994 to 1996. He joined the board of FirstRand Bank Holdings in 2003 and was appointed chief executive officer with effect from January 2006. In February 2006 he was appointed an executive director of FirstRand. FirstRand has announced that Sizwe will be taking over from Paul Harris the role of CEO FirstRand Limited when Paul retires at the end of December 2009.

Viv Bartlett started his career with Barclays Bank DCO South Africa, which in 1987 became First National Bank of Southern Africa. After four years of overseas secondments he returned to South Africa in 1972 where he served as general manager and managing director in various group companies until being appointed as group managing director and chief executive officer of First National Bank of Southern Africa in 1996. In 1998, he was appointed deputy chief executive officer of FirstRand Bank, a position he held until his retirement in 2004.

Johan Burger graduated from Rand Afrikaans University in 1983 and qualified as a chartered accountant after serving articles with PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc.

He joined Rand Merchant Bank in 1986 and was appointed an executive director in 1995. Following the formation of FirstRand in 1998, he was appointed financial director of the FirstRand Banking Group. In January 2009 he was appointed to the Board of FirstRand Limited as financial director and assumed the additional role of Group chief operating officer in June 2009.

David Craig is a private investor with long experience of international investment markets, particularly in specialist areas such as Private Equity, Hedge Funds, Event Driven and other targeted investments across different capital classes of individual companies.

Until recently David served as managing director and chief investment officer of Sand Aire Limited, a large multi-family investment management office located in London, with a focus on advanced asset allocation processes . In 1983 he set up IFM Asset Management, the first major hedge fund group in London, which he ran until the time of its sale in 1994. Prior to that time he was responsible for European Capital Markets activities first for Hambros, the London merchant bank, then for JP Morgan.

Leon Crouse studied at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth and after obtaining a Certificate in the Theory of Accounting in 1976, he qualified as a chartered accountant in 1977. During his professional career of more that 30 years, he gained financial knowledge and experience by lecturing at the University of Stellenbosch and holding various financial management positions in the sectors of telecommunications, luxury goods, chemicals and clothing and textiles.

He joined the former Rembrandt Group in 1986 in which year he transferred to Switzerland to hold the position of financial controller of Compagnie Financiére Richemont AG and to be part of the team that unbundled the luxury goods business from the Rembrandt Group to form Richemont and list it on the Swiss, Luxembourg and South African Stock Exchanges.

In 1993, as a Rembrandt appointee, he returned to South Africa to become a founder member of the Vodacom Group executive team. Rembrandt, at the time, held a 5% interest in Vodacom. During his nearly 15 year career at Vodacom, he served as general manager finance between 1993 and 1996 and as chief financial officer from 1996 until March 2008. He joined Remgro in April 2008 as designate Director: Group Finance and was appointed to the Board on 18 June 2008.

Pat Goss, after graduating from the University of Stellenbosch, qualified as a chartered accountant with Ernst and Young and subsequently joined the Industrial Development Corporation. He has served as a director of various group companies for the past 30 years. A former chairman of the Natal Parks Board, his family interests include Umngazi River Bungalows and other conservation related activities.