Laurentian Bank CEO Rania Llewellyn has stepped down from her position, effective immediately, and has been replaced by the bank's personal and commercial banking head, Éric Provost, the lender announced Monday.
Chairman Michael Mueller has also resigned. Michael Boychuk, who most recently led the audit committee, takes his place.
The sudden shakeup comes two weeks after the conclusion of the bank’s strategic review, during which time it expressed intention — and failed — to find a buyer. Following the review, Laurentian said it would instead increase its “focus on efficiency and simplification.”
The bank gave no explanation for Llewellyn and Mueller’s departures. They had been with the bank for three and five years, respectively.
“Éric is the right executive to lead the Bank at this critical point in its evolution,” Boychuk said in a prepared statement. “We have experienced challenges recently and the Board is confident that Éric will successfully focus the organization on our customer experience and operational effectiveness. Éric’s appointment as CEO follows his exceptional performance leading our Commercial Banking business and was part of our formal succession planning process.”
Provost’s “immediate priority … will be to rebuild trust” with customers following a mainframe outage that happened during an IT maintenance update last week.
Customer data and financial information were secure during the outage, the bank said, but Provost will implement a three-part plan to resolve outstanding outage-related issues, bolster communications with customers, and launch a review of what led to the outage.
This is Provost’s second promotion in a month. Before the end of the strategic review, he led just the commercial banking business, but he received personal banking responsibilities when the bank saw fit to tighten the executive team.
“The trigger for this morning’s leadership changes appears to be more tied to the bank’s ongoing systems issues, but it is hard to believe that the outcome of the recent strategic review was not a factor as well,” said analyst Meny Grauman at Bank of Nova Scotia, according to The Globe and Mail.
