Retiring Regional Australia Bank CEO Kevin Dupe
Regional Australia Bank is on the hunt for a new CEO for the Armidale-based champion of the mutual banking sector.
Kevin Dupe, now 65, will retire from the bank at the end of September, after 21 years at the helm of the former New England Credit Union, Graham Olrich, the chair of RAB announced on Friday.
The bank’s board “will commence the search for a suitably qualified replacement for Kevin and will announce his replacement as CEO in due course,” Olrich told the mutual’s members.
They may not have to look too far, with two members of the bank’s management team believed to be in the running, among others.
One obvious internal successor is Michelle Edmonds, who has been deputy CEO for the last two years and COO for six years before that, and who has worked 22 years of her 25 year career in financial services at RAB. Edmonds is preparing for this CEO role, or another, enrolled in a higher degree at the INSEAD Business School.
The second is Campbell Nicoll, the bank’s chief risk officer, who brings a more diverse CV to the job. Nicoll was general manager of credit at ASB Bank in New Zealand for 2 years from late 2010, and served as CRO at Colonial National Bank (Fiji) before that.
Nicoll made the move to the then Community Mutual Group in late 2012.
Olrich’s board has had ample time to meditate on the credentials of internal applicants for the CEO’s job, and turn up external candidates.
Dupe deferred his retirement, which was first scheduled for Christmas 2020, at the board’s request.
For Dupe, retirement may be a misnomer; he is on the lookout for board appointments with an environmental and social justice bent.
Dupe’s successor may slide into the CEO role at the bank with confidence, commanding some of the brightest financial metrics in the customer-owned banking sector.
Olrich, in his statement to members last week, shared the nugget that “Regional Australia Bank is forecast to make a pre-tax profit of $20.1 million” over the year to June 2021, “despite the incredible economic and health headwinds the world has faced this year.”
This is roughly double the FY2020 pre-tax profit of A$10.9 million, a result held back by initial provisions for the pandemic as well as for drought, and the merger costs between RAB and Holiday Coast Credit Union.
It also implies a sector-leading return on equity of more than 8 per cent.
APRA data shows RAB has matched system growth on both deposits and mortgages over the last year.
The change in CEO may help sharpen debates within the board over any member value creating mergers with other mutual banks (and also amalgamating small-scale credit unions in northern NSW). Not that Banking Day has heard of any current proposals, but discussions of this type are common in the world of mutual banking.
Regional Australia Bank ranks around 12th-largest mutual ADI by asset size, and with $2.5 billion in assets the bank would need to double in size to scrape into the top 10.