The man who was kicked out of his CEO position within a week but stayed at the company and became a billionaire

Former Capitec CEO Gerrie Fourie said his first stint as chief executive ended soon after his appointment, but he was happy to stay on and build the bank.

Fourie shared this information during a discussion about his career at Capitec on an Efficient Group market call.

He joined the financial institution in 2000, before it was called Capitec. He was recruited as the managing director of the initial microlending enterprise.

TJ Strydom, the author of Capitec: Stalking Giants, wrote that Fourie had to run more than 100 microlenders and also rapidly increased the footprint.

Michiel le Roux, the driving force behind Capitec, used these microlending shops to create a fully-fledged bank with an existing branch network.

Fourie was the de facto chief executive. However, this stint in charge of Capitec came to a sudden end after other executives joined the team.

A core team of leaders at Boland Bank, Riaan Stassen, André du Plessis, and Carl Fischer, was not happy at work and joined Capitec.

Stassen was a highly experienced finance and banking executive, and Le Roux decided to put him in charge of Capitec.

Stassen was appointed CEO of the new bank, and Fourie graciously moved to the chief operating officer role.

“I also probably had the shortest stint as a CEO in history. I joined on 1 April, and Riaan Stassen and his team were appointed that same month,” Fourie said.

“They went to Botswana for about two or three months because they wanted to take a sabbatical, eventually joining us around June or July.”

“It was actually during my very first week that Michiel le Roux called me and said, ‘Listen, you’re not the CEO anymore. Riaan is going to take over.’”

“I told him that I don’t care. Stassen had much more experience than I did, and for me, the only thing that mattered was that we had to build the bank.”

“That was simply the way we operated. We didn’t worry about titles or who did what. Everyone had a function, and you just got on and did it.”

Gerrie Fourie later became Capitec CEO and a billionaire

Gerrie Fourie worked alongside Stassen and other colleagues to create one of South Africa’s most successful companies.

In 2013, he took over from Stassen, who had decided to retire. At the time, Capitec had 5 million clients and fewer than 800 branches.

Under Fourie’s leadership, Capitec expanded to over 24 million clients and introduced fully digital onboarding.

He was behind numerous initiatives, including launching the banking app, rolling out Capitec Pay, acquiring Mercantile, and launching Capitec Business.

Fourie was also behind launching Capitec’s Insurance offering and expanding its footprint globally through the AvaFin acquisition.

He said that, for him, it was never just about growth. “It’s about staying focused on the client and solving for their needs, not ours,” Fourie said.

In April 2026, Fourie was appointed to the company’s board as a non-executive director following his retirement from the top job.

He was also appointed as an independent non-executive director on STADIO’s board. The company is a South African private tertiary education provider.

Staying at Capitec and helping to build the bank paid off handsomely, making Fourie one of South Africa’s richest people.

During his tenure as Capitec chief executive and executive director, Fourie was paid R877 million in salaries and bonuses.

This included a total remuneration of R154 million in the 2026 financial year, which included a long-term incentive bonus of R146 million.

The significant increase in the 2026 reporting year is primarily due to shares and share appreciation rights that vested upon his retirement.

However, most of Fourie’s wealth is based on his Capitec shareholding. Fourie owns 1,027,673 Capitec shares, representing 0.89% of the company’s share capital.

Based on Capitec’s latest share price, Fourie’s stake in the company is worth R4.7 billion. This makes him one of South Africa’s richest people.