RISK INSIGHTS WELCOMES ANASHRIN PILLAY AS NEW ACTING CEO

After nearly three decades in risk management, the founder of Risk Insights Anushka Bogdanov will be stepping down as CEO of Risk Insights to take a medical sabbatical. She has recently been diagnosed with early stages of serious illness and will be focusing on treatment and recovery. Over this period, Anushka has been a role model and mentor for women across South Africa as a leader, educator, mother, daughter and business owner, her perseverance has been showing that woman can achieve success in all spheres of life.
Anashrin Pillay will take up the role of acting CEO of Risk Insights with primary focus on driving the Environmental, Social and Governance based ESG GPS model to the next level.

Some of Bogdanov’s career highlights include:

• Setting up trade finance limits for ABSA London in the 1990s when South Africa became part of the global economy and sanctions were lifted after the abolition of apartheid;
• Being part of Fitch International and rating banks across the globe for emerging market economies including South Africa and the rest of Africa;
• Leading a team of analysts and ensuring that Nedbank’s Basel II models for retail banking (home loans) being the first to be accredited by the South African Reserve Bank at the time;
• Pioneering risk and analytics department at the Development Bank of Southern Africa; establishing and leading first fully-fledged risk and analytics team at Development Financial Institutions in South Africa;
•  Founding Risk Insights (Pty) Ltd 11 years ago and (among other successful projected which change risk management landscape in Southern Africa) building SA’s first Artificial Intelligence driven ESG Rating Model; model has been built with a team of young black data scientists from the township in 2020;
• Launching an e-learning platform and digital campus in SA during the COVID19 pandemic through partnership with a multinational company Tata Consulting Services to assist in the democratisation of education in our country,
• Serving on various boards and audit committees for the South African government institutions as well as private sector companies.

Risk Insight’s welcomes Anashrin Pillay, in taking over as acting CEO, previously served as Group Head of Investor relations at PPC, with his primary role to serve as the leader of ESG GPS for South Africa, Africa and the world. Anashrin has a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Mathematics, Actuarial Science and Statistics and recently completed his PGDIP at Henley Business School in 2020 with distinction.
Anashrin is an investment professional with pan-African investment experience. He joined the stockbroking industry in 2005 as a junior analyst. In 2009, he was rated in the annual Financial Mail survey for analysts in the construction sector. In 2010, he joined Stanlib Asset Management as an industrial analyst and was responsible for covering diversified industrials and construction as part of the Stanlib Industrial Team. In 2014, he joined PPC as programme management officer in the office of the CFO, responsible for special projects. In this capacity he was successful in delivering a profit improvement programme in excess of R400m and was project lead on a transaction of more than R100m. In 2016, he was appointed as a senior corporate finance analyst involved in project finance reviews in various rest of Africa countries including (Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Ethiopia and DRC) and investigating M&A opportunities. In 2017, he was appointed as Head of Investor Relations at PPC. He also served as Chairman of the PPC Pension Fund Investment Committee and currently serves as a director on the board of the Investor Relations Society of South Africa.

We wish speedy recovery to Anushka Bogdanov and every success to Anashrin Pillay in his leadership new role.