Winner of the Young CFO of the Year Award at ACCA’s Africa Chief Financial Officer Awards 2024, Hezron Musonda FCCA took less than five years to climb from graduate trainee to CFO at the tender age of 27. Still only in his early 30s, he’s now a year into his third board-level role as executive director and CFO at Zambia Sugar – a distinct gear shift after a decade spent in the banking sector.
‘There’s a fulfilment that comes from dealing with tangibles,’ he says. ‘In banking, you’re providing a service you can’t really see, but here I can walk through the mill and see the sugar being produced – it’s a very different kind of experience.’
Maintaining control
The pressure of working at the country’s top sugar manufacturer and Africa’s largest single sugar mill comes from the scale of operations and all its moving parts. In his previous role as CFO at Nigerian-owned Access Bank, he led a combined team of 10 staff, spread between finance and enterprise business services departments; here he has 60 people under him. ‘So you have to keep on top of things or they’ll run away from you,’ he says.
Then there is the listing on the Lusaka Securities Exchange, which brings with it responsibilities to shareholders and the market – another new element, but one for which his experience working with both local and international interests has prepared him well.
‘Not everyone gets the chance to be involved in as many M&A transactions’
‘None of the banks I worked for were listed; in each case we dealt with one big shareholder across the continent or ocean,’ he says. ‘Here, 25% of the business is listed and owned by multiple shareholders (local and foreign) and 75% is owned by the British multinational Associated British Foods, but I’m used to dealing with a blend of cultures.’
Indeed, Musonda has worked with people from across Africa, the US, China and the UK on his journey from Zambia’s central bank, via KPMG to BancABC, Bank of China, Access Bank and now the sugar industry.
‘There are so many things you can learn,’ he says. ‘Chinese efficiency is simply amazing; Americans focus on returns; and when it comes to getting what they want, Nigerians are very aggressive.’
Rapid rise
On a Bank of Zambia scholarship for outstanding students in accounting, Musonda graduated from The Copperbelt University and headed straight to KPMG, where, while he didn’t find audit to his liking, he seized the chance to learn.
‘During a busy time in the year when staffing was prioritised towards the big corporates, an NGO was left waiting,’ he recalls. He convinced a senior manager to let him run its audit. ‘I impressed, won promotion from trainee to associate within my first five months, and then jumped into a graduate training programme with BancABC.’
Zambia Sugar in numbers
1964
Year of establishment; listed on Lusaka Stock Exchange in 1996
450,000
Annual sugar mill production capacity in tonnes
7,310
Number of direct employees
ZK2.51 billion
2024 pre-tax profit on turnover of ZK7.53bn
From here, Musonda continued to move rapidly through the ranks, impressing again during a group-wide budgeting project to become assistant finance manager followed by close involvement in a series of M&As.
‘Not everyone gets the chance to be involved in as many M&A transactions as I did in the space of just eight years,’ he says. ‘It was a unique privilege.’
His involvement in due diligence for BancABC’s acquisition by Atlas Mara led to a further promotion – to finance manager for tax, statutory and external reporting – during which he was involved with another acquisition, this time on the buyer side.
‘The acquisition target had three subsidiaries – a leasing company, a building society and a microfinance institution, so it was complex,’ he says. ‘On top of that, I was in charge of the taxation and statutory and financial reporting for BancABC, which itself had two subsidiaries – a property management company and an asset management company. I also prepared the first group consolidated financial statements after acquisition, which was another great experience.’
‘I remember the MD putting me forward, saying “he’s already running things”’
Bank of China then came knocking at his door. ‘They’d been struggling to find a finance manager and reached out to me, but as I joined, the CFO role became vacant, and the central bank was prompting them to find a replacement. I remember being in a board meeting and the MD putting me forward, saying “he’s already running things”.’
The central bank approved his CFO position, but they wouldn’t have if he hadn’t been an ACCA member, Musonda says. ‘To be a bank CFO, by law you need to be a chartered accountant, and via ACCA’s association with the Zambia Institute of Chartered Accountants, I am.’ Courtesy of his ACCA qualification, he was also able to take a ‘quick route’ to the MSc in Professional Accountancy with the University of London, which he achieved in 2019.
In his time as CFO, Bank of China went from eighth to second position in the Zambian banking sector, a transformation that for Musonda almost, but not quite, outshines the achievement of making CFO at 27, or his last M&A outing at Access Bank, when he had to clear the backlog from a previous acquisition, before it too merged with Atlas Mara.
‘This was the most complicated exercise and I was part of the front line,’ he remembers. ‘From drafting the [merger] application to modelling the merged entity for the central bank, which then sends in a due diligence team to check your numbers. It just can’t be taught in class. The first application to the central bank, which was made just before I joined, had been unsuccessful, so I had to make sure the second succeeded, which is where my experience paid dividends.’
CV
2024
Executive director and CFO, Zambia Sugar, Lusaka
2022
CFO, Access Bank, Lusaka
2017
Financial manager, then CFO, Bank of China, Lusaka
2014
Graduate trainee, then finance manager, BancABC, Lusaka
2013
Accountant trainee, then audit associate, KPMG, Kitwe
2012
Finance and accounting intern, Bank of Zambia, Lusaka
Sweet move
He left to join Zambia Sugar just after the financial closing of the M&A transaction. ‘It’s been a great first year,’ he says, from his desk overlooking the vast Kafue Flats wetlands – one in which he has focused on enhancing controls, digitising systems, mining for talent and getting people trained up on the business’s newly adopted ERP system, SAP.
‘We now have a financial controller, and an internal controls and compliance specialist to build the proper control environment for our capital and tangible asset-intensive operation,’ he says.
‘I want people to draw insights from the data, not simply report it’
‘Some people have been with the company for more than 10 years and I want to combine that rich institutional memory and knowledge with experience from other sectors – a kind of hybrid workforce. I also want people to spend less time in Excel, so we’re providing training in advanced data analytics tools. I want people to draw insights from the data, not simply report it.’
Musonda’s remarkable career trajectory, from his rapid rise through the banking sector to the top finance job at Zambia’s largest sugar manufacturer, highlights his exceptional adaptability and leadership. With his admirable track record of success, and still only in his 30s, the future looks very promising indeed.
