Chris Witila
Head of Treasury Operations at Absa Bank Kenya PLC- Claim this Profile
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Bio
Credentials
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ACI Operations Certificate
ACI Financial Markets AssociationSep, 2016- Oct, 2024 -
Chartered Financial Analyst - Level 1
CFA InstituteDec, 2010- Oct, 2024 -
Association of Chartered Certified Accountants
ASSOCIATION OF CHARTERED CERTIFIED ACCOUNTANTS
Experience
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Absa Bank Kenya PLC
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Banking
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100 - 200 Employee
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Head of Treasury Operations
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Nov 2019 - Present
Reporting into the Operations Director, I perform the following duties under this role: • People management, • Departmental strategy formulation, • Accountability for controls and processes, • Dissemination and implementation of executive strategy, • Head of equity and fixed income brokerage operations, • Head of custody operations (Equity), • Treasury operations staff exposure, training and development, • Global Markets and Treasury new product approval, • Relationship management of internal and external stakeholders, • Point of contact for internal, external and regulatory audits. • Suspense account ownership/accountability • Statutory reporting • Contribution to board papers Management committee participation: • Trading Risk Committee under Global Markets function • Treasury Risk Committee under the Treasury function • Management Committee under the equity and bond brokerage subsidiary • Industry Treasury Managers under the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) • Regional Treasury Operations management committee. Representing Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania offices. Show less
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Assistant Treasury Operations Manager
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Apr 2015 - Oct 2019
Responsible for the day to day running of the Treasury Operations department, with accountability for the operation team’s performance, reporting into the Treasury Operations manager. Key duties involved:• Ensuring team compliance with prescribed regulatory, industry and internal policies and procedures.• Continuous monitoring of Treasury systems and processes to identify control risks and make recommendations to the Treasury Operations Manager, Head of Middle office, The Chief Dealer and Bank Treasurer.• Review of suspense account reconciliation (NOSTRO and cash clearing accounts) for all Treasury transactions/deals.• Administration and maintenance of Global Markets and Treasury departments' authorized signatories with external parties such regulators and trading partners.• Maintenance of all static data and testing of new products in the Treasury Management System.• Primary point of contact for all Global markets and Treasury operational audits.• Products handled: Vanilla FX trades, interbank lending and borrowing trades, fund manager call fixed deposits, derivative products (forwards, interest rate/currency/commodity swaps, options floors and caps, equity and fixed income brokerage services, equity custodian operations/services, Medium Term Notes (MTN) management, Achievements:• Co-led exercise to revamp group Treasury Operations Control standards and trained trainers in 5 countries to disseminate revised the operations standards.• Supported development of an interphase for RTGS processing to enable local clearing of foreign currency denominated transfers via the Central Bank.• Developed and steered business continuity management plans and activities for the Treasury Function consisting of 4 separate teams and forty-four (44) staff.• Delivered new products and major changes, among them Dual Currency Deposits, Interest Rate Swaps, Non Deliverable Forwards, major system upgrades, set up of Barclays Bank on the Central Bank’s Internet Banking. Show less
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Team Leader – Operations Processing
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Mar 2013 - Apr 2015
In this role I had responsibility for management of a team, vetting and authorization of transactions in line with prescribed business rules and provided primary point of contact for both corporate and retail clients. Additionally, I had responsibility for updating, parameter maintenance, testing and vendor liaison for the core processing system in use.Achievements realized:• Developed and implemented workflow management process, reducing my team’s overtime costs by 90%.• Interrogated, tested and delivered the bank’s primary system for processing bulk transactions/payments. Successfully seeing through 2 system changeovers, end to end.• In line with regulatory and industry KYC (Know your Customer) standards, I developed an internal minimum standard of maintenance of key static data which ensured customer contacts were kept up to date and provided a reference point for the update of similar data in other bank systems. Show less
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Supervisor
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Mar 2008 - Apr 2013
Key Strengths:• Solution orientation - I led a team of 3 to recover over 630 transfers to multiple accounts and banks within 2 week period following an erroneous customer bulk customer transactions. . Leveraging on my networking and rapport building skills to achieve this outcome. I was subsequently formally awarded and acknowledged for my dedication to customer service.• Innovation - Devised a reconciliation process for the primary bulk EFT settlements account transacting over 5000 transactions daily, saving 40 man-hours per week. The outcome was a process improvement to 30 minutes from 8 hours and yielded cost savings in allocated resourcing.• Developed process efficiencies around workflow management which improved query response times from 48 hours to 2 hours, thus improving service levels and eliminating overtime costs. Show less
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Entry Level bank Clerk
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May 2007 - Feb 2008
Achievements realized: Consistent top rate/outstanding performance resulting in my first promotion to supervisor within 10 months of employment.
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Citi Bank N. A.
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Nairobi, Kenya
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Internship Trainee
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Nov 2006 - Mar 2007
Deployed to task force handling Mumias Sugar company equity offer for sale. Begun my familiarization with a career in bankiing Deployed to task force handling Mumias Sugar company equity offer for sale. Begun my familiarization with a career in bankiing
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Education
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2002 - 2006
Oxford Brookes University
Bachelor of Science, Applied Accounting -
1998 - 2001
St. Mary's School Nairobi
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