CBA’s head of communications Kate Abrahams steps down as Matt Comyn steps up

Incoming CBA chief executive Matt Comyn at its Sydney head office. (Picture: James Croucher)

Three days before Matt Comyn takes over Australia’s biggest bank, Commonwealth Bank’s head spinner Kate Abrahams has announced she’s leaving the joint.

There goes another one.

Abrahams joined CBA from listed fund manager Perpetual in 2013 in the first half of Ian Narev’s six-and-a-half-year reign, which officially ends on Monday.

The keen skier’s four-and-a-half years at the hugely profitable bank have been downhill, one ski, no poles, as the $130 billion behemoth has struggled with a rolling series of reputational crises that many in the industry finger as a key driver of Kenneth Hayne’s financial services Royal Commission.

Abrahams’ departure is the latest instalment in CBA’s ongoing executive exodus that has followed ice-cold chairman Catherine Livingstone’s announcement last November that Narev was leaving.

Among the pinstripe crowd either following former McKinsey management consultant Narev’s path, or already out the door, are former wealth boss Annabel Spring, HR boss Melanie Laing, IT boss David Whiteing and institutional boss Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, better known to some as one of endangered members of Steven Lowy’s imperilled Football Federation Australia board.

And, like a skier 500 feet down Whistler’s 2,500 foot Couloir Extreme, or an internal candidate taking over an under-siege institution two weeks into a year’s worth of royal commission hearings, danger lurks ahead.

That’s not going to be lost on those Comyn is interviewing to replace Abrahams.

It’s going to take a bit of danger pay to get someone to step into these abandoned skies.