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The big four bank has announced a major restructuring, including appointing two separate heads to lead its business and consumer banking operations.
Westpac chief executive Peter King has announced that the group is changing its structure and is appointing two separate heads for consumer banking and business banking.
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For the past two years, Chris de Bruin has led both consumer and business banking under one division.
However, the major bank has announced that it will separate these two divisions from August as part of a move to “sharpen [its] focus” and “position the company for future growth”.
Jason Yetton, Westpac’s CEO for specialist businesses and a former CBA NewCo head and CEO of SocietyOne, will become the new CEO of consumer banking.
Mr Yetton has held several senior roles over his Westpac career already and was group executive for retail and business banking between 2011 and 2015 and the general manager for retail and regional banking for three years before that.
He also held several senior roles at BT Financial in the early noughties.
Speaking of Mr Yetton’s appointment, Mr King commented: “Jason has a 30-year history with the group. His breadth of expertise stretches across all facets of banking, including time running Westpac’s retail and business banking division from 2011 to 2015. Jason has also led our portfolio simplification since 2020.”
New business banking CEO
While Mr Yetton will take on consumer banking, Anthony Miller (currently the head of Westpac’s institutional bank), will become the CEO of business & wealth.
Mr Miller has been with Westpac for the past three years and was formerly the CEO of Deutsche Bank Australia & New Zealand.
Mr King commented: “Since joining three years ago, Anthony has grown our institutional business while improving return.
“He is a seasoned banker, having held executive and client-facing roles at some of the world’s leading banks. Anthony is well placed to drive growth in Westpac business banking.”
Given Mr Miller will be vacating his role as CEO of the institutional bank, Westpac has named Nell Hutton as his successor.
Ms Hutton is currently the general manager, financial markets at Westpac Institutional Bank but will join the executive team in August.
Mr King said he was pleased to have someone of Ms Hutton’s “calibre” join the executive team, adding that she was “an outstanding leader, who has delivered a strong performance during her time leading financial markets and will continue to build the institutional bank”.
Chris de Bruin to leave
Given the separation of consumer & business banking, Mr de Bruin has decided to leave the group to “pursue new opportunities”.
Mr King said: “I want to thank Chris for his contribution to the bank. In particular, he’s led the digitisation of the consumer bank, including the delivery of major initiatives such as the digital mortgage and payment solutions.
“He’s also driven our branch co-location strategy and strengthened the franchise. Chris will assist with the transition to the new structure.”
No more specialist division, customer and corporate services merged
In other changes, Westpac has also announced it will be scrapping its specialist business division and establishing a stand-alone function to accelerate its technology simplification.
It will also move operations to corporate services, creating “an expanded shared services team”.
Carolyn McCann – who is currently responsible for corporate services – will become the group executive customer & corporate services.
Scott Collary will move from his position as group executive, customer services & technology to become chief information officer.
Mr King said the group had a significant technology and customer agenda underway.
“Scott Collary will continue to spearhead our technology transformation with a focus on streamlining our tech systems across the Westpac Group, while Carolyn McCann will lead an expanded division for customer and corporate shared services, including operations, helping to leverage the benefits of scale,” he said.
“The new structure will give the leadership team a greater focus on growing their businesses and delivering for customers.”
[Related: Westpac Group to join Home Guarantees]
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