Scotiabank’s Chris Hodgson plans to retire in October, 2014.Brian Pieters
The Bank of Nova Scotia is shaking up its wealth and insurance and global transaction businesses with a change in leadership and organization structure.
The change involves shifting the global transaction banking group, splitting up the wealth and insurance group and folding the parts into other areas of the bank. Starting in November, the three activities will be moved into the three main Scotiabank business lines: Canadian banking, international banking and global banking and markets.
The bank also said Chris Hodgson, current group head of wealth and insurance, would be retiring at the end of October. He was appointed to the role four years earlier and spent a lot of his career at the bank and its investment dealer arm ScotiaMcLeod. Once thought to be a candidate to lead the bank, Mr. Hodgson also has experience overseeing Canadian banking.
The change is part of new chief executive Brian Porter's vision to restructure the business in a way that brings the bank nearer to clients.
"Our objective in creating global wealth and insurance was to fast track growth across Canada and our international footprint," said Mr. Porter, in a statement. Now that the business has grown, "this success creates the opportunity to realign these businesses more closely with our customers, distribution channels, and business partners," he said. Scotiabank provides financial services in 55 countries.
As the businesses are integrated, the global wealth and asset management unit will be led by James O'Sullivan as executive vice president. He will report jointly to the group head of Canadian banking Anatol von Hahn, as well as international banking head Dieter Jentsch.
Scotiabank's insurance business, which offers coverage in both life and health as well as property and casualty insurance, will be divided by geography and fit under the Canadian or international banner.
The global banking and markets group of Scotiabank will absorb the existing global transaction banking business, which provides businesses, governments and other groups with services such as cash management, electronic banking and trade finance with coverage in more than 55 countries. Alberta Cefis, head of the global transaction banking group, will retire at the end of October after 15 years with the bank and eight in her current role.
With this change, Marian Lawson has been promoted to the new role of executive vice president of global financial institutions and transaction banking. She reports to Mike Durland, chief executive of global banking and markets.