AIB HAS lost a second acting chief risk officer in less than a year as the bank awaits regulatory approval for its choice of a permanent candidate for the role.
The role of chief risk officer at AIB, one of the most critical management roles at the bank, has not been filled on a permanent basis for more than 2½ years.
AIB told staff in an internal e-mail yesterday that Stephen Bell, a director of PricewaterhouseCoopers, was leaving to take up another job. Mr Bell is being lined up by Ulster Bank as its new chief risk officer. His appointment is awaiting regulatory approval.
Ulster Bank had no comment.
AIB appointed Mr Bell as acting chief risk officer in May. He took over from Mary Phibbs, an associate at restructuring firm Alvarez and Marsal who had been appointed the previous October.
John Conway, human resources director at AIB, told staff yesterday that the process of appointing a chief risk officer was “at an advanced state” and an appointment would be made shortly.
The bank said that in the meantime the role would be carried out by chief credit officer Dara Rowley and Fidelma Clarke, the chief risk officer at AIB subsidiary, EBS.
The bank is awaiting approval from the Central Bank for its preferred candidate for the role, one of the key banking functions monitored by the regulator.
A spokeswoman for the Central Bank said that such an appointment would be subject to its fitness and probity requirements as is standard for such positions.
The role of chief risk officer has been filled on an interim basis since May 2009. The Central Bank objected to another preferred candidate for the position last year.
Mr Bell together with executive chairman David Hodgkinson proposed changes to the credit structure of the bank in September.
The changes, which were agreed by the AIB board, involved chief credit officers in the bank’s business “segments” reporting directly to the heads of each unit.
This altered a structure set up by former managing director Colm Doherty who moved to reform AIB’s pre-banking crisis credit structure after taking charge in 2010. He directed all individual credit officers to report to the group chief credit officer.
Joe O’Connor, a senior executive appointed to this role by Mr Doherty, left AIB in disagreement over last September’s changes.
The Central Bank wrote to AIB last month, directing the bank to reverse the changes so chief credit officers reported directly to the group chief credit officer again.
AIB has hired PricewaterhouseCoopers to help run the bank. The firm had 37 consultants at AIB in July. The bank has said this would reduce to 12 by year-end. Its old “siloed” credit structure was cited as a reason for the massive growth in AIB’s property lending.
