Profile
Take the first step As one of just twelve FTSE 250 women CEOs, Ruth Leas (BA 1993, BA Hons 1994) shares how she’s navigated her career in a fastchanging economic environment. By Ufrieda Ho
22 Wits Review October 2023
Image: Rebekah Kennington
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t’s Ruth Leas’s accent that gives her away immediately – and that’s exactly how she likes it. Ruth is CEO of Investec Bank in the United Kingdom, and a South African who has proudly retained her Joburg accent even after living in London for the past 22 years. She has made straddling two worlds a kind of superpower: it certainly provides perspective. Even when she was an undergrad student doing her Bachelor of Arts degree she unexpectedly had to bridge the two worlds of Wits East and West Campus. She says: “There was a lot of walking up and down because I was based on East Campus but took economics on West Campus. I got to be with both populations – those studying business and those who were in the arts. Those were good days with great memories,” she says. Fast forward to June this year. As she settles down for a video chat it’s a time of upheaval in the finance world, with the fallout from bank collapses in the United States and Switzerland. In the UK, high inflation and higher interest rates are new territory.
