NAB appoints business boss Andrew Irvine as next CEO

Incoming NAB chief executive Andrew Irvine says there will be no major pivots as he takes the helm amid a slowing economy, but he will have the opportunity to grow the bank’s presence in several markets according to his predecessor Ross McEwan.

Irvine, who was announced as the new chief executive and managing director of NAB on Wednesday, said the business was in a good place following McEwan’s stabilisation of the bank, and that his immediate focus would be listening to staff and customers.

NAB’s Andrew Irvine will become the new CEO on April 2.Credit: Oscar Colman

“We’re going to evolve our strategy to continue to be relevant and important for our customers, but there will be no major pivots,” he said. “I want to spend a lot of time going across the country and visiting other markets as well, listening to our customers and to our colleagues.”

Irvine will commence his chief executive tenure on April 2. He has been overseeing the lender’s biggest operating division, business and private banking since 2020, after a stint as head of Canadian business banking at the Bank of Montreal – Canada’s oldest bank and one of its largest financial institutions.

Irvine will succeed McEwan, who will step down in April after nearly five years in the role, including steering the bank through the aftermath of the banking royal commission.

Talking to reporters after his appointment on Wednesday, Irvine was keen to signal continuity, stressing he had been on NAB’s leadership team where he helped make the decisions that had got the bank to where it was now and that he would focus on “doing the basics well”.

“If there’s one thing that Ross has instilled in all of us, it’s to keep it simple,” Irvine said. “Look after your people and look after your customers.”

Irvine said his tenure would not be about making a mark, but continuing the journey the bank has been on, with a focus on scams and fraud which he labelled the “plague of our times”, as well as cybersecurity.

McEwan warned the economy would continue to slow this year, but noted some opportunities for growth.

“Economically, Australia is slowing down,” he said. “We’re not seeing a real drop-off or customers struggling to pay off credit cards, but it’s getting quieter, businesses and personal customers are making adjustments, and they’re finding it harder. But we’ve strengthened our core bank, which is our business and private bank, strengthened our personal bank ... and the New Zealand business is going well, so I think there are plenty of growth opportunities to be found in those markets.”

Chief executive Ross McEwan will step down in April.Credit: Peter Rae

NAB chair Phil Chronican said both internal and external candidates were considered, but noted there was a higher threshold for external hires given the bank’s focus on continuity and building on McEwan’s work.

He said Irvine was the ideal choice to succeed McEwan after a lengthy assessment process, given his success leading the nation’s largest business bank franchise and his international experience.

Chronican praised McEwan, who joined the bank at the end of 2019 with a mandate for change in the wake of the banking royal commission following the exit of the bank’s then-chief executive Andrew Thorburn and chairman Ken Henry.

“Ross has been exactly the CEO we needed. He came in at a critical time with significant international experience and expertise,” Chronican said. “Ross has done a great job developing the company, stabilising the organisation, fixing many of the issues of the past.”

Irvine will receive a fixed remuneration of $2.5 million a year, including superannuation, and will also assume McEwan’s position of chair of the Australian Banking Association on behalf of NAB.

McEwan will retire and cease employment from NAB on July 1 after stepping down from the chief executive role on April 2, and following a transition period.

McEwan said it was mid to late last year that he told Chronican he felt ready to kick off the retirement process.

“It just felt like the right time,” he said. “We’ve been doing a lot of development work internally with our senior executives, the organisation has done a great job of rebuilding its mojo and, for myself, I’ve done several very large gigs, and it just felt like the time to do something different.”

Jefferies equity analyst Matthew Wilson said he didn’t expect any dramatic change in strategy but it would not surprise him to see “a level of executive refreshment”.

J.P. Morgan lead Australian banks analyst Andrew Triggs said Irvine’s appointment was unlikely to impact the bank’s earnings, given NAB’s good shape, but that its investment spend was lower than its peers and could be an area of focus.

Shares in NAB fell 0.2 per cent to $31.13 at the close on Wednesday.

McEwan plans to split his time between Australia and New Zealand following his retirement.

“From a personal perspective, I have an amazing wife who has followed me for 25 years in different countries,” he said. “One of my biggest tasks will be to be a better grandfather than I probably have been for the last five or six years, and I’d like to think let’s do a couple of board roles.”

NAB said a new business and private banking group executive would be selected in due course.

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