Chief Financial Officer, International Financial Services (Ifs)
Sydney, Nsw, Au
IFS was responsible for the offshore consumer banking and life insurance operations of CBA. As CFO reporting into the CEO and CBA Group CFO, I lead a team of up to eight direct and 160 indirect finance professionals in six countries across Asia and South Africa tasked with reshaping an underperforming, high cost, branch based retail bank, to a leaner digital business. Build Initiatives:• Established the regional finance team based in Hong Kong in 2015 appointing new CFO’s in Vietnam, China, South Africa and Indonesia.• Lead the finance function build for the TymeDigital bank in South Africa including business case preparation, funding strategy, bank licence application, staff appointments, general ledger implementation, and transition to a bank.• Exceeded profit targets every year through sustained cost reductions and strategic divestments.• Represented CBA as Director on (Listed) Vietnam International bank (VIB) for 2 years and Commissioner on First State Investments IndonesiaTransformation and Strategic Divestment:• Initiated cost programs in Indonesia and China in 2017 delivering savings of ~1000 roles through simplification, delayering, functional consolidation and footprint reduction.• Designed & delivered the sale & wind down of CBA’s Mumbai and HCMC branches.• Lead the due diligence for: - CBA’s sale of the China County banks in 2017 - CBA's sale of TymeDigital South Africa in 2018. - CBA’s sale of the insurance business in Indonesia in 2018/9.Closed and exited the CBA Hong Kong IFS head office in December 2019 relocating with the family back to Australia.