1. Maria da Conceicao das Neves Calha Ramos was born on 1959 and is a South African businesswoman and former civil servant.
23 Facts About Maria Ramos
1. 2.
Maria Ramos was the chief executive officer of the Absa Group from March 2009 to February 2019, during which time she oversaw the company's unbundling from Barclays.
3.
Maria Ramos left Absa in 2019 to take retirement but nonetheless was chairperson of AngloGold Ashanti from December 2020 to May 2024.
4.
Maria Ramos was the eldest of four daughters and her parents emigrated to Mozambique and then, when Ramos was six years old, to Vereeniging, South Africa.
5.
Maria Ramos's family was working class; her father was a bricklayer.
6.
Maria Ramos received scholarship money from Barclays, becoming the first woman to receive the bank's formerly male-only scholarship.
7.
In May 1995, Maria Ramos joined the post-apartheid South African government as deputy director-general for financial planning in the National Treasury.
8.
However, in September 2003, Maria Ramos announced that she would leave the treasury in January 2004 to succeed Mafika Mkwanazi as group chief executive officer of Transnet.
9.
Six months after her arrival at Transnet, in August 2004, Maria Ramos announced a proposal for a major restructuring of the Transnet Group, supported by Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin.
10.
Maria Ramos was reportedly the highest-paid woman executive in the country.
11.
Maria Ramos spent five years at the utility; in November 2008, she announced that she would leave at the end of February 2009.
12.
In March 2009, Maria Ramos succeeded Steve Booysen as chief executive of Absa Group, one of South Africa's largest banking conglomerates.
13.
Maria Ramos became the top-paid executive in South Africa's banking industry.
14.
On 29 January 2019, Maria Ramos announced that she would leave Absa at the end of February 2019, retiring upon her 60th birthday.
15.
Maria Ramos was appointed as a director at AngloGold Ashanti in June 2019, and on 8 December 2020 she was appointed as chairperson of the company's board.
16.
Maria Ramos held the position for three-and-a-half years, handing over to Jochen Tilk at an annual general meeting on 28 May 2024.
17.
Maria Ramos has been an independent director of Standard Chartered and Standard Chartered Bank since 1 January 2021.
18.
Maria Ramos has been a non-executive director at Richemont since 2011, though the company announced in 2023 that she would resign from the board on 31 March 2025.
19.
Maria Ramos has been an independent director at Sanlam, SABMiller, the Saudi British Bank, and Remgro Limited.
20.
Maria Ramos has been chairperson of the Banking Association of South Africa, a member of the executive committee of the World Economic Forum's International Business Council, and a member of the executive committee of Business Leadership South Africa.
21.
Maria Ramos received African Business's Outstanding Businesswoman of the Year Award in 2009, the Wits Business School's Management Excellence Award in 2010, and CNBC's Africa Woman Leader of the Year Award in 2011.
22.
Maria Ramos has often been ranked in Fortune's list of most powerful women, as well as in its Forbes counterpart; in 2017, she was the only African on the Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women ranking.
23.
Maria Ramos married South African politician Trevor Manuel on 27 December 2008.