next CEO made their final pitches to the bank’s board of directors, vying to land one of Canada’s most influential corporate jobs. In carefully crafted presentations, they outlined competing visions of how they would boost the bank’s fortunes and shape its strategy in the coming years should they be chosen to lead Scotiabank’s next era. Hearing them out from across the boardroom table, as a director and co-chair of the bank’s succession planning process, was Scott Thomson..
That late shift has raised awkward questions about the accelerated process that chose Mr. Thomson over the summer. Those included whether the board and outgoing CEO Brian Porter failed in their duty to identify and prepare suitable candidates from within the bank’s management, or to land a leader with sufficient external banking experience. An important job of a CEO is to manage and groom suitable candidates, and making the final choice is the board’s top responsibility.
The decision to make him a candidate for CEO so late in the process didn’t break any obvious rules. But it has left an uncomfortable sense that the playing field may not have been level, both inside the bank and in the wider corporate community. And that could affect the way the bank is perceived, and morale among employees.
The bank’s pivot from a path that could have named Mr. Lawrence or Mr. Rees as CEO – both widely presumed in the industry to be the leading contenders, inside and outside the bank – appears to have happened between mid-June and August. Mr. Regent, the board chair, said in an interview this week that the bank “benchmarked our internal options against externals and we had some great choices.”
The process to evaluate internal candidates had also dragged on for three years. As time passed, the uncertainty about the outcome generated friction inside the bank, according to three sources familiar with internal dynamics. Teams became less co-operative as employees chose sides, underperforming areas weren’t as readily addressed for fear it could damage relationships, and even relations among the candidates and in their interactions with Mr.
That spurred Finning to start in January and February this year to plan more seriously for an eventual change in CEO. In April, Kevin Parkes – who will succeed Mr. Thomson as Finning’s CEO in mid-November – returned from an absence for health reasons and was appointed the company’s chief operating officer, putting him squarely in line for Finning’s top job. At the time, Finning was expecting Mr. Thomson would retire and Mr. Parkes would replace him in January or February, 2023.
Brian Porter destroyed Scotiabank's culture - it's amazing they thought this was negative: 'an internal company presentation obtained by The Globe at the time, Scotiabank's culture was described as 'overly collegial.'' The employees I know at Scotia are now miserable people.
The devil is in the details. Bet if we compared compensation packages to the incoming CEO with the two previous who moved through the ranks it will be noticeable different. Ex. His based pay will be slightly lower as well as the perks and benefits will differ.
Stunning and brave
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