At its today´s meeting, the Board of Directors of Banco Sabadell officially confirmed the appointment of its new CEO. The Board accepted the resignation of Jaime Guardiola as CEO and appointed César González-Bueno as his replacement, having received the necessary authorisations from the European Central Bank (ECB). At this meeting, the Board of Directors also approved the organisational structure proposed by the new CEO.
González-Bueno said: “It is an honour to lead a bank with Sabadell’s reputation and ambition. I would like to thank Chairman Josep Oliu for his confidence, which has been endorsed by the Board and the regulator, and Jaime Guardiola for helping me with the onboarding process. Sabadell has a first class team and a culture of excellence.”
In his first hours as CEO, César González-Bueno unveiled a new organisational structure, which is the first step in implementing the bank’s future strategy. The main pillars of which are a greater focus on customers and increased profitability. The Bank will be structured into three large business units in Spain with very different features: Retail, Business and Corporate.
Retail Banking
The Retail Banking unit will be reorganised to improve processes, as well as to adapt the range of products and services to customers’ needs in an environment that has undergone a significant transformation. Digitalisation will be a key element in supporting the more than 3,500 professionals in Sabadell’s branch network to further improve customer experience, as well as drive more profitable and efficient growth
The Retail Banking Division will be structured into product units in order to ensure greater support to customers. In addition, this business unit will have a private banking division to cover the specific needs of this segment.
César González-Bueno will temporarily head this unit until its future director is appointed.
Business Banking
The Business and Network Division contributes the most to the Bank’s profitability, generating a double-digit ROE, and is where Sabadell holds a leading position in the Spanish market. Here, the Bank aims to consolidate its position and efficiently increase the volume of business relationships, which are key in this segment. The nearly 4,000 professionals with managerial responsibilities have built close, trusted and lasting relationships, anticipating their customers’ needs and supporting them at all times. Business Banking is structured by segments, from self-employed workers to large enterprises.
This unit will be led by Carlos Ventura, who will also be in charge of the entire branch network.
Corporate Banking
Given the capital intensiveness of the Corporate Banking Division, the focus of the strategic plan will be on efficient capital management. This division will continue to be structured in customer units to serve large corporations and interact with them, and will have cross-disciplinary divisions for specialised products. These areas will also provide services to reinforce Business Banking, with specific solutions for SMEs, which increasingly demand more sophisticated products.
Corporate Banking, which also covers all the international portion of this area of services, will continue to be managed by José Nieto.
César González-Bueno said that “this new organisational structure will enable us to carry out our strategy with a focus on customers and profitability. Each business is structured differently to match and serve the needs and priorities of their customers. Over a third of the people who are part of the new top-level management team have been promoted internally –undeniable proof of our commitment to talent.”
Banco Sabadell’s Chairman, Josep Oliu, highlighted: “César’s reputation and experience executing strategic transformation and digitalisation processes make him the ideal person to lead Banco Sabadell as it focuses on improving efficiency, increasing profitability and creating value for shareholders”.
The new organisational chart
To make the business units more agile and autonomous, each of their directors will be responsible for some of the corporate functions and capabilities of the Financial, Organisation and Resources, Operations and IT, Risks and Legal Advice areas. Each unit will also be responsible for its income statement (revenues, expenses, provisions and capital consumption).
The international subsidiaries, TSB and Mexico, are not undergoing any organisational changes and their strategy will continue to be to focussed on accelerating their profitability and increasing their contribution to the Group. No sale process will be initiated in the near future.
