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CIBC Caribbean’s Bahamas chief taking early retirement

CIBC Caribbean yesterday unveiled changes to its region-wide country management structure which will see its present Bahamas managing director, Dr Jacqui Bend, step down and take early retirement.

Mark St. Hill, the bank’s regional chief executive, said the BISX-listed institution is now searching for Dr Bend’s replacement as part of a management shake-up that is due to take effect from March 1, 2025.

“Additionally, our managing director in The Bahamas, Dr Jacqui Bend, will take early retirement and transition to an assignment designed to assist us in our transformation and governance programme, while our managing director in Trinidad, Anthony Seeraj, will remain with the bank until the end of fiscal [year[],” Mr St Hill said in a statement.

“During this time his new remit will be to help us secure a new head of country for Trinidad, while assisting in a number of business development activities in Trinidad, after which he, too, will take retirement. We are also undertaking a search for a new head of country in The Bahamas to succeed Dr Bend.”

Moving forward, Mr St Hill said Donna Wellington, formerly managing director for Barbados and the Organisation for Eastern Caribbean States (OECS, is the newly-appointed chief country management officer who will head the regional country management structure. She will be responsible for all country-related activities.

Mr St Hill said: “Donna’s vast knowledge of banking, and her commitment to client service, makes her the perfect choice for this role. We know that she will bring the same energy to developing our business in the rest of the region that she brought to managing our operations in Barbados and the OECS.

“This change to the organisation’s structure will mean that our other current managing directors with responsibility for the bank’s operating companies will transition to different types of roles in the organisation. CIBC Caribbean’s managing directors in the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, Mark McIntyre and Nigel Holness, will be appointed as chairmen of the Cayman and Jamaica businesses respectively, while taking early retirement from their day-to-day duties.

“We feel extremely fortunate that these hugely experienced individuals will continue to be a part of our team, albeit in different capacities. We are also excited to announce a further evolution of our talent of professionals to meet the demands of the new CIBC Caribbean, as we have appointed a new crop of heads of country to take over in five of our jurisdictions.”

Kemar Polius will succeed Ms Wellington at the helm of the bank’s Barbados operations, while Gemel Sobers has been appointed head of country for the Cayman Islands. Annique Dawkins is the head of country for Jamaica. All will report to Ms Wellington, and their appointments are subject to regulatory approval.

Mr St Hill added: “We are shifting to a more country-focused performance model, having successfully optimised our geographical footprint from 17 countries to 10, and from 72 to 45 branches. This alignment emphasises, at the country level, business development and performance, client-facing activities and people leadership as we continue to embed our new corporate culture, which we started work on over the past year.”

“Our stated goal is to make our clients’ ambitions into reality. To do this, we must be closer to our clients, learning what they want from us and finding the best way to make it happen. A key component of that is ensuring our employees have the right tools and the best working environment to deliver for our clients, so our heads of country will focus heavily on that, while ensuring we keep our commitment to contributing to the development of our communities.”

“We have rationalised and consolidated our geographical footprint since 2016. We have enhanced our client experience and made several other structural adjustments such as integrating all our business segments under one chief commercial officer, centralised key functions, launched an agile way of working to give us a greater competitive edge, centralised our digital sales through our loan store, and revamped our call centres into contact centres. This is one more piece of the puzzle as we continue to develop our business capabilities and effectiveness.”

Comments

ExposedU2C 3 weeks, 1 day ago

Can't help but wonder if CIBC's senior execs in Commerce Court, Toronto have only recently learned about the extent of the CIBC group's aggregate credit/investment exposure to the insatiably greedy Snake.

Baha10 3 weeks ago

Didn’t you comment on a “glowing” Article on this subject earlier in the week for which Comments have since been pulled😂

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