Today is my final day as CEO of
ANZ. For nine and half years I have had the great privilege of being the custodian of our nearly 200-year-old bank.
Looking back, when I started as CEO on 1 January 2016, I had a clear vision for how to respect our rich history and take the bank, simpler and better, into the future. This vision included our purpose, our business strategy, our culture and values, and how we would work to achieve this. Put simply, our promise to customers, shareholders, the community and each other.
What wasn’t clear was what the future entailed but we sure knew it would be different, and wow, were we right!
People often ask me what the highlight of my time as CEO has been and while I am proud of many of the business and financial achievements I can wholeheartedly say it’s the people – the wonderful colleagues I have worked with, our business customers with their incredible entrepreneurial spirits, and the retail customers who have told me about how ANZ helped them achieve their dreams of owning a home.
The last decade has, and will forever be, the highlight of my career. ANZ means more to me than a balance sheet, a dividend, or a great place to work – it has been a big part of my life, and not just professionally.
I calculated my tenure to be exactly 5% of the ANZ’s existence, which seems insignificant in the history of the bank. Over the next 200-years cycles will come and go, strategies will change, but what I hope never changes is the great sense of purpose within ANZ.
There could be no greater privilege than shaping a world where people and communities thrive. It has been an incredible honour to be the custodian of ANZ for this chapter.