Metcash has appointed Deepa Sita to succeed Alistair Bell as Group Chief Financial Officer. Mr Bell had earlier advised the Board of his intention to retire from the role.
Ms Sita has extensive finance and industry experience spanning over 20 years and is currently Chief Financial Officer of the largest FMCG company in Africa, Tiger Consumer Brands Limited. In addition to finance, Ms Sita has significant senior leadership experience across strategy, mergers and acquisitions, digital, information technology and integration.
Prior to Tiger Consumer Brands, Ms Sita held senior leadership roles with Walmart’s South Africa-based subsidiary Massmart. These included Interim CEO of Masscash, Finance and Commercial Director of Masswarehouse, Chief Strategy and Integration Officer of Massmart Wholesale and CFO of Makro SA, all divisions of Massmart. She also held senior finance roles with Mondelēz International and Samsung Electronics South Africa. Ms Sita is currently a non-executive director of Datatec Limited in South Africa.
Ms Sita has received many recognition awards for excellence and outstanding performance during her career and, most recently, was named the 2022 winner of South Africa’s CFO of the year awards in the Finance and Technology, and Compliance and Governance categories.
Metcash Group CEO Doug Jones said: “Deepa is a very experienced finance executive and will be a strong partner to both me and Metcash. Her skills and experience are outstanding and, with a family background in independent retail, she has a passion for Metcash’s purpose of Championing Successful Independents.”
Ms Sita will join Metcash in January 2024. Mr Bell has kindly agreed to stay on until the end of February to assist Ms Sita with her transition into the Group CFO role.
As noted in Metcash’s earlier release, Mr Bell has been integral to helping oversee the growth of Metcash over the last three years.