Chief Executive Officer of Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), Matt Comyn, has today announced six appointments and changes to the Executive Leadership Team (ELT), including simplifying the Bank’s structure.
The appointments and restructure follow a thorough Australian and international search process and will install a new team to lead the Bank. The new team members bring a strong mix of deep experience in banking, risk management, digital transformation and cultural change leadership.
Mr Comyn said he had evaluated a large number of impressive external and internal candidates and was pleased to appoint leaders with a good balance of external experience and knowledge of CBA, with the customer focus and commitment required to support him and the Board.
“This team will be critical to continuing the changes and improvements we need to make to earn the trust of our customers and the community and build a better bank for the future,” Mr Comyn said.
The changes to the Executive Leadership Team are as follows:
Nigel Williams has been appointed Chief Risk Officer (CRO) and will join the Bank on 5 November 2018. Nigel has more than 30 years of experience in banking, including 15 years at ANZ as CRO and previously Head of Institutional Banking in Australia and in New Zealand. Nigel will play an important role in improving credit risk, operational risk and compliance at a critical time for the Bank.
David Cohen has been appointed Deputy Chief Executive Officer, and will be moving from his current role as Chief Risk Officer, effective from 5 November 2018. In this new role, David will be responsible for: strengthening the Group Customer Relations and Customer Advocate functions; leading the demerger of the Colonial First State Group, and the M&A team; and assisting the Chief Executive Officer with Group-wide initiatives including engagement with industry groups, government, regulators and community groups. David has more than 20 years of banking and wealth management experience, previously serving as General Counsel for CBA and prior to that at AMP.
Pascal Boillat has been appointed Group Executive Enterprise Services and Chief Information Officer, with responsibility for all technology and operations across the Bank, and will join on 1 October 2018. Pascal brings more than 30 years of experience, most recently from Deutsche Bank where he was Global Group Chief Information Officer. Prior to Deutsche Bank, Pascal was head of operations and technology for Fannie Mae, and before that worked at Citi. Pascal will be responsible for delivering CBA’s future technology and operations strategy, including data management, enabling innovation, strengthening risk controls and simplifying our business.
Sian Lewis has been appointed Group Executive Human Resources and will commence in the role, effective from 1 August 2018. Sian joined CBA in 2014 and currently leads more than 2,500 people across our customer contact centres. Prior to joining CBA, Sian spent nine years at Westpac working across retail and business banking, including as head of NSW retail network. Originally from the UK, the first 10 years of Sian’s career were in HR and in all her roles she has been an exceptional people leader.
Andrew Hinchliff has been appointed Group Executive Institutional Banking and Markets, effective from 1 August 2018. Andrew joined CBA in 2015 as Executive General Manager Global Markets after more than 15 years in global institutional banking and markets roles with Goldman Sachs, and earlier at Credit Suisse First Boston. Andrew will be responsible for leading the banking and global markets divisions servicing CBA’s Institutional clients.
Angus Sullivan has been appointed Group Executive Retail Banking Services, effective from 1 July 2018. Angus is currently Acting Group Executive Retail Banking Services and joined CBA in 2012, where he has led the retail strategy, retail products division, payments innovation and most recently the retail branch network. Angus started his career at Unilever and Goodman Fielder and also worked as a research analyst at Fidelity. He was then a partner in McKinsey’s North American Financial Services practice where he worked with a range of banks, wealth managers and financial regulators.
The Retail Banking Services (RBS) division will now include Bankwest. In addition, following the announced demerger of Colonial First State, RBS will also include Commonwealth Financial Planning, reflecting our ambition to deliver better customer outcomes through a new safer, simpler, and more scalable model for financial advice. RBS will also have responsibility for General Insurance while the strategic review of that business is underway.
Mr Comyn said, “All other roles on my leadership team remain unchanged. We are still completing the search process for the final ELT position of Chief Financial Officer, considering both internal and external candidates. We expect to be ready to make a permanent appointment after the full year results in August.”