The International Business Magazine Awards recently presented Bank Windhoek with two awards for 2021. The first accolade recognised the bank’s Managing Director, Baronice Hans as the Best Banking Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Year in Namibia while the second prize acknowledged Bank Windhoek as the 2021 Best Corporate Bank in Namibia.
The International Business Magazine Awards was established with the prime objective of admiring the best-in-class achievements on budding industrial talent, global leaders, and corporates across varied spheres related to the international business and finance arena. Since 2018, the International Business Magazine Awards has recognised many businesses, from the Middle East, Africa, Americas, Asia, and the European region.
“The awards are structured to spearhead the core corporate players, who are known to showcase power to lead from the front. It honours those who strive harder for achieving supreme quality services and backing them up with a perfect platform for appreciating their business ethics and productive work,” said a representative from the International Business Magazine Awards, Chris Young.
Young added that the International Business Magazine Awards’ core success story lies in supporting dynamic, young, unbiased, comprehensive well trained field experts who keep their think-tank going strong all round the clock. “The entire award process is strictly supervised and scrutinised by expert panellists comprising essential subject matter experts, judging panellists consisting of a research team and the editor to select the winners amongst the vital list of nominees,” said Young.
In her acceptance remarks, Hans said that winning an award during a challenging economic environment impacted by Covid-19 shows the bank’s staff and customers resilience, trust, commitment and hard work. “Both our awards are a sign of our collectiveness, working towards a common goal despite the challenging times. As connectors of positive change, besides building a strong and high performance driven business, we focus on giving back to the communities in which we operate. We also ensure that we embed environmental sustainability into the core of how we approach business.”
A chartered accountant by profession, Hans previously won the accolade of Namibian Businesswoman of the Year in 2015/2016.
She has an extensive career in banking and served on several boards in diverse disciplines such as telecommunications, power distribution, non-bank financial regulation, life assurance, asset management, and fishing and marine resources.
As managing director, Hans leads the bank in all spheres of business and chairs various committees. She serves on multiple boards, including the Bank Windhoek board of directors, Capricorn Asset Management, and Welwitschia Insurance Brokers.
During her tenure, Bank Windhoek won various national and international awards, most notably the Global Banking and Finance Award, The Banker’s Bank of the Year Award, and PSG’s Banking Review Report’s Best Namibian Bank Award, as well as the Best Corporate Bank in Namibia, awarded by the Global Banking and Finance Review.
She describes her leadership style as inclusive and collaborative, and she believes that to be a better leader, one needs to be open to learning from others. “Growing as a leader also involves learning from your successes, failures, and experiences. Everyone must realise that they are leaders in their own right and therefore make time to invest in their self-development,” said Hans.
“As leaders, we must drive change that delivers the future we want to build, creating an environment that enables all our staff members to be their best and meet our customers’ needs as a relationship-driven bank,” concluded Hans.