Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) has named Joyce Phillips as its global wealth and private banking chief executive.
Phillips is the group managing director of strategy, mergers and acquisitions, marketing and innovation. She will keep responsibility for the bank’s marketing, innovation and digital functions in addition to her new responsibilities, which she takes up from 1 March.
She played a major role in ANZ’s acquisition of a majority stake in ING Australia and was on the board of OnePath.
Her appointment was one of raft of senior management and organisational changes aimed at accelerating ANZ’s super-regional strategy, supporting growth and strengthening succession planning, the bank said.
“These changes support our super-regional aspiration at a time when banking globally is undergoing a major upheaval as a result of low credit growth, funding challenges and new regulation,” ANZ group chief executive Mike Smith said in a statement.
“This creates significant opportunities for ANZ. However, we also need to manage our business differently – we need to be leaner and more innovative in this new and more difficult environment.”
Earlier this week, ANZ said it was cutting 1000 jobs by October and cited poor demand for financial services.
Smith said the management and organisational changes helped streamline the bank’s structure and allowed for greater coordination between strategy, finance and treasury.
In other senior appointments, Peter Marriott steps down as chief financial officer after 15 years with the bank and will be replaced by institutional banking chief Shayne Elliott. Marriott will remain with ANZ until 31 May to help Elliott make the transition to his new job. Elliott will also head strategic activities.
Elliott’s team will focus on clients who depend on trade or capital flows in the Asia-Pacific region, Australia and New Zealand. That included a focus on three growth segments – natural resources, agriculture and infrastructure, ANZ said.
Alex Thursby will take up an expanded role as CEO of global institutional and Asia-Pacific, Europe and America (APEA). Thursby will focus on ANZ’s largest multinational clients around the world, as well as the growth and transformation of ANZ’s international franchise. He will continue to have responsibility for retail and commercial business in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as partnerships.
Smith said Thursby would focus on boosting ANZ’s earnings from APEA. “With institutional accounting for 55 per cent of APEA’s earnings, his new role will focus on the delivery of our goal to source 25 to 30 per cent of group earnings from APEA by 2017,” he said.
Elliott, Thursby and Phillips remain members of ANZ’s management board and report directly to Smith.
