Incoming Westpac CEO Anthony MIller
There were 33,290 full-time equivalent employees on the Westpac payroll at the end of Brian Hartzer’s tenure as CEO of Westpac.
And 36,150 on the Westpac payroll at the time of the bank’s 2023 annual report.
And then 35,350 FTEs at the March 2024 interim results.
In November 2022 Westpac abandoned the target it set the year before to bring its operating expenses down to A$8 billion a year by the 2023/24 financial year.
So much of the turnaround program under departing CEO Peter King was unattainable, it’s to his credit vital elements – such as HOPE - were achieved at all.
Westpac’s cost to income ratio has been the worst in the industry across much of Peter King’s time at the helm, and most recently reported at 50.9 per cent for the March 2024 half.
Getting on top of Westpac’s costs and deft oversight of its (costly) plans to consolidate technology platforms will be the chief tests of Anthony Miller, the EGM of business banking and wealth, whom the Westpac board named as managing director-designate yesterday.
Anthony Miller joined the Westpac management team in 2000 from Deutsche Australia, hired at the time as head of Westpac Institutional Bank.