Some CFOs manage the numbers, and there are CFOs who shape the future through them. Joel Makombe, Group Chief Financial Officer of CBZ Holdings Limited — one of Zimbabwe’s most prominent diversified financial services groups — belongs firmly in the second category.
With over 15 years of experience spanning banking, insurance, and asset management, Makombe has built a career defined not by the passive stewardship of financial resources but by the active deployment of financial intelligence as a strategic instrument.
His academic formation reflects the rigour his career demands. An MBA graduate from Oxford Brookes University in the United Kingdom and holder of an MSc in Professional Accountancy from the University of London, Makombe combines the technical depth of a trained Chartered Accountant with the strategic breadth of an executive who has operated at the intersection of finance, governance, and organisational transformation. That combination is not accidental.
It is the architecture of a professional who understood early that the most consequential financial leaders are those who can move fluently between the granular and the structural — between the quarterly report and the ten-year horizon.
The hallmarks of Makombe’s career are visible in the complexity of the mandates he has taken on. His work in mergers and acquisitions, divestments, and turnaround financial strategies speaks to a professional who has been trusted with the most high-stakes decisions in any organisation’s lifecycle — the moments when financial leadership either secures a future or forecloses one.
His command of IFRS-based financial reporting, scenario planning, budgeting, and transfer pricing gives him the full toolkit of a modern Group CFO operating across multiple regulated sectors and diverse market conditions. His certification as a PRINCE2 Project Management Practitioner further signals a discipline that is unusual in senior finance leadership: the ability to translate strategy into structured, accountable execution.
As Group CFO of CBZ Holdings, Makombe provides strategic financial leadership across the Group’s portfolio — guiding its fiscal direction, fortifying operational resilience, and ensuring that the decisions made today compound into long-term value for every stakeholder the Group serves. In a region where financial services leadership is increasingly expected to do more than balance books, Joel Makombe is precisely the kind of CFO that institutions — and economies — need.
TheCFO Magazine’s CFO of the Week recognizes exceptional Chief Financial Officers worldwide, celebrating their outstanding leadership, impactful achievements, innovative solutions, extensive industry expertise, and invaluable contributions to their organizations.
