NAB's acting CEO Phil Chronican was last night anointed the next chairperson of the bank after he decided not to nominate as a candidate for the top executive post.His decision may clear the way for Medibank supremo Craig Drummond to return to NAB after he was overlooked for the CEO role five years ago. Drummond is viewed among institutional investors as the leading candidate to take over as chief executive on a permanent basis. In his time at NAB, Drummond commanded deep respect among many of the bank's middle managers and technical specialists for his sharp capacity to identify value in the business units and people of the organisation.His management methods are widely acknowledged as a contrast to the muddled thinking that drove the recent restructuring programs that seek to transform NAB into a centralized digital bank.Before 2014 NAB always differentiated itself from its three major rivals by sticking to its knitting as a relationship bank.That animating principle was always the key to NAB's success in the SME market: one banker charged with taking all the calls, orders, complaints and bouquets from a small business customer they invariably grew to know.Andrew Thorburn centralized the bank's interactions with SME borrowers, often leaving them frustrated and stranded.And it left NAB knowing less about those customers.Under the Thorburn model small business customers were forced to interact with "a centre" where they could only guess who was going to pick up the phone. It was a far cry from what business customers had grown to expect from NAB - continuity in the form of a familiar face and voice.More importantly, the owners of those faces and voices also had minds that were acutely tuned to the needs of the business people they were dealing with.Neither pooled call centres nor a service platform loaded with artificial intelligence can replace a relationship manager.In some ways it's a shame that Chronican won't be the next permanent CEO because he is a nuts and bolts banker that understands most of this stuff. Moreover, in the few days since taking over the executive leadership in an acting capacity he has already begun to address another big problem that has been threatening to run out of control at NAB since the middle of last year.Thorburn's aggressive hacking of the branch network has instilled insecurity among customer-facing staff.The latest round of cuts that were announced last week will affect more than 900 employees.While not all of the issues flowing from this overhaul have been resolved, Chronican has managed to avert a full-blown industrial showdown with the Finance Sector Union.Chronican spent a large chunk of his first day (March 1) as CEO meeting with senior officials of the FSU and NAB workplace delegates.His conciliatory approach to those discussions was critical in the union deciding to withdraw an earlier threat to file a dispute notification with the Fair Work Commission over the latest branch overhaul.Chronican's overtures to the union and workplace representatives was reminiscent of one of his former bosses - Bob Joss