Lindeka (Leeds) Dzedze is the Head of Strategic Partnerships within Global Markets at the Standard Bank Group. In her role, she advances Standard Bank’s strategy focusing on Investors, DFI’s, Sovereigns, and parastatals to help drive a solutioning approach across the Bank’s Client business, ensuring the delivery of more impactful solutions. Lindeka’s core role and responsibilities involve working with international and African investors to deploy capital into impactful opportunities across the continent by creating bespoke financial solutions. She leverages of relationships with US institutional investors and US government agencies through the bank’s partnership with MiDA Advisors, an implementation partner for investment and trade for USAID, to source sustainable long-term capital at reduced cost.
Lindeka is the Executive Sponsor of Non-Banking Financial Institutions Innovations at the Standard Bank Group and also serves on the board of SBG Securities (Pty) as non-Executive director. With over 20 years of banking experience, Leeds lives to drive positive change, fuelled by her passion for the African continent and its development. Leeds has held several senior roles at Standard Bank Global Markets including being the Head of Money Market Sales & Institutional Foreign Exchange, where she led a team that won numerous industry accolades. This includes being recognised as the “Best Foreign Exchange Sales Team in 2015 and 2016”. Prior to this, she worked as a Senior Equity Sales Trader at JP Morgan Securities, Andisa Securities and Credit Suisse Standard Securities and as an equities trader at Investec Securities. She began career in corporate finance at Hambros Bank SA.
Lindeka chairs the African Women Impact Fund (AWIF) Initiative Executive Committee. The AWIF is an Initiative of the UN Economic Commission of Africa (ECA) and its partners, in collaboration with Standard Bank, that seeks to promote the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals 5 (Gender Equality) and 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), and the AU Agenda 2063 on the continent.
For her work on the AWIF Initiative, Lindeka has had the honour of being named as one of 100 Most Influential Africans of 2022 by African Business Magazine, and one of the 10 Influential Black Corporate Women to Watch in 2023 by CIO Magazine.