Contributing Writer for Wake Up World
This month has seen a rash of top level resignations across some of the most major banking institutions across the globe.
There has also been news of potential upcoming resignations which could have a considerable impact as well, not the least of which is the potential resignation of Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive officer (CEO) of Goldman Sachs.
According to Fortune, this could occur as early as this summer, although this is still merely a possibility and far from set in stone.
However, there are many very real and quite perplexing instances of bank heads quitting across major institutions like the World Bank, the Nicaraguan Central Bank, Kuwait’s Central Bank, two of Slovenia’s biggest banks and more.
It appears this trend began some time early this month, perhaps with the resign of Amitabh Chaturvedi, the CEO of Dhanlaxmi Bank Ltd on February 6.
This was supposedly due to Chaturvedi having “serious differences with the board regarding the strategies of the bank. He had different views on several issues. It was coming,” an anonymous bank official told Mint.
Chaturvedi’s resignation was just the beginning. On February 10, Business Standard reported that A K Jagannathan, the managing director and chief executive of Tamilnad Mercantile Bank resigned, citing personal reasons.
Then, on February 13, the Washington Post reported via the official Kuwait News Agency that Sheik Salem Abdulaziz Al Sabah, a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, resigned after 25 years heading up the nation’s central bank.
While the brief announcement gave no immediate reason for the move, internal speculation surrounds his opposition to increased domestic spending, including wage increases.
Just the next day, the head of the Nicaraguan Central Bank, Bloomberg reported that Antenor Rosales quit, apparently over disagreements with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, however an official statement claimed that the resignation was “normal government procedure” and not the result of a disagreement.
The following day brought reports of the CEOs of Slovenia’s two largest banks stepping down along with the planned resignation of World Bank President Robert Zoellick, who will leave the bank on June 30.
Then the next day, February 16, the chief financial officer of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ANZ Bank) resigned after 15 years as the bank’s CFO. Also on that day, it was announced that Andrew Check would lead the Royal Bank of Scotland’s Australian arm after Stephen Williams resigns in the next three to six months.
On the February 17 the news broke of Blankfein’s possible future resignation along with Bloombergreporting that Credit Suisse Group AG’s private bank in Signapore’s chief Asian economist, Joseph Tan, resigned.
On February 18 the British Daily Mail reported that Germany’s president, Christian Wulff, resigned over a scandal involving an attempt to gag a press investigation into political favors and possible bribes. While this obviously isn’t a bank executive, it is noteworthy nonetheless as it is still part of the trend of prominent individuals resigning, quitting and otherwise stepping down from their position of power.
The reasons behind this trend are unknown as of yet and indeed they could not be connected in any way, yet I think that is highly doubtful. I am not yet prepared to speculate as to why this is happening with such frequency right now, however I will say that I hope it is due to some serious changes being made in the financial system – hopefully for the good of us all.