Royal Bank of Scotland named three new senior appointments to complete a management shake-up and further distance the part-nationalised bank from the era of former chief executive Fred Goodwin.
Brian Hartzer will join from the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group and take responsibility for the UK retail, wealth and Ulster Bank divisions from Gordon Pell, the bank said today. RBS owns Ulster Bank and First Active.
Mr Pell will remain as deputy CEO until early next year, and will by then be the last director who served under Goodwin.
Mr Goodwin expanded RBS through a string of acquisitions over a decade but was replaced by Stephen Hester in November after the bank slumped to a £20 billion (€22.5 billion) loss and had to be rescued by the taxpayer.
RRBS's board was criticised for allowing Mr Goodwin to make too many acquisitions and pursue a risky strategy.
RBS said yesterday Guy Whittaker, who was finance director under Mr Goodwin, will leave before October.
The bank, now 70 per cent owned by the British government, also said on today Paul Geddes, currently CEO of UK Retail, would join the bank's executive committee as CEO of RBS Insurance.
Chris Sullivan, current CEO of Insurance, will become CEO of the UK Corporate Banking division.
The changes are expected to take effect from July 31st.
RBS said all nine members of its executive committee - which sits just below board level - will be new to their posts in the last 14 months, and seven have arrived since October. The moves will complete management restructuring at the executive committee level, it said.
“The journey to standalone strength is a 3-5 years one, with tough restructuring to execute against an inclement economic backdrop,” Mr Hester said in a statement.
“I am, however, increasingly confident that we have assembled the 'tools' to do the job,” he added. In February, Mr Hester ousted seven directors in a boardroom cull, just days after its chairman stepped down.
Reuters