CBA boss is planning for the future and his successor

There are two big messages coming out of the management reshuffle at the nation’s biggest bank.

CBA CEO Matt Comyn is shaking up his management ranks. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

There are two big messages coming out of the major management reshuffle by Commonwealth Bank boss Matt Comyn.

The first is the nation’s biggest bank is moving the executive pieces around the board as it plans for the CEO succession. The second is Comyn is not going anywhere. For now.

While the two concepts might be at odds, Comyn has the bank strategically and financially humming along well and where rival banks are being reshaped, he is under no pressure to retire. The bank’s record share price also means the CBA boss has time on his side.

Still, he is closer to retiring and that moment is likely to happen within the next two to three years.

Already at more than six years in the top job, Comyn is understood to be happy in the post with a lot going right and a strong working relationship with his new chair, Paul O’Malley.

Even with the economy slowing, CBA is humming along in a good spot. Picture: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg

He has now overtaken his two predecessors Ian Narev and Ralph Norris in tenure. But Comyn – or even the bank for that matter – won’t want him to stick around to match legendary CBA boss David Murray, who saw it through for 13 years.

And at just 48 years old, Comyn has another CEO career in front of him if he chooses – and this will likely offshore. So timing is everything.

However, the looming retirement of two of his senior executives in risk and HR functions has given Comyn the chance to test some internal candidates, while bringing outside talent into the mix.

Any CEO should be thinking about succession options for the board from the beginning, and here Comyn clearly developing several different succession paths for them to consider.

Comyn describes the changes as providing “continuity and renewal while balancing experience and external perspectives”.

The key to Comyn’s moves is all about longer term planning, and comes with the backdrop of two rivals National Australia Bank and Westpac recently undergoing their own CEO changes. Meanwhile, long-serving ANZ boss Shayne Elliot is facing under mounting pressure given problems in his institutional business and is expected to call it a day some time in the next year.

One to watch is Comyn’s appointment of HSBC UK executive Emma Bunnell into the oversight role of CBA chief operating officer. Bunnell, a one time Boston Consulting Group partner, is looking to return to Australia after spending her much of her career in the UK in banking and management consulting.

For the past four years, she has been the chief operating officer of HSBC’s UK franchise for the past four years and as well as heading up the bank’s Channel Island finance hub. Much of her time at HSBC has been dealing with external shocks of the UK banking market, from Brexit to steeper interest rate hikes. At HSBC has also had oversight of anti-money laundering, which is where CBA came unstuck with regulators.

CBA’s incoming risk officer Andrew Hinchliff.

Elsewhere in the shake-up, is institutional banking boss Andrew Hinchliff, who moves from an operational position into the critical role of chief risk officer, which puts him one step higher in the management and governance chain. This post delivers independent risk assessment for Comyn and the board. Hinchliff replaces long serving Nigel Williams, who plans to retire in February.

Also to watch is fast moving Sinead Taylor, who is being tested in the operational role of institutional banking boss. She has been CBA’s chief operating officer for the past three years, and before that headed up CBA’s Bankwest retail franchise. She takes charge of a business that generates more than $1bn in annual earnings, although this puts it behind retail banking and business banking.

Even with the changes, retail banking boss Angus Sullivan remains in his key role, meaning his is firmly in the mix. Comyn moved Sullivan, a former McKinsey executive, into his old job of running CBA’s biggest division shortly after being named chief executive in 2018. Sullivan has since steered the retail business through first through Covid-pandemic, the mortgage boom, and then the inflation and interest bubble without missing a beat. With ANZ likely on the hunt for candidates, Sullivan remains vulnerable to outside opportunities. So too Mike Vacy-Lyle, who runs business banking, that remains a critical battleground business that generates nearly 40 per cent of group earnings.

In shaping candidates for the CBA board, there are likely to be more moves of executives to come with others tested in new roles. But Comyn the ever cautious banker, has stability at the front of mind and will first want to see his new executive team settle in.

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Originally published as CBA boss is planning for the future and his successor