By Eric Johnston
THE Westpac chief, Gail Kelly, has reshuffled her top executive ranks for the second time in four months after long-term confidant Rob Chapman opted to quit running its regional subsidiary St George Bank.
Mr Chapman will return to his home city of Adelaide after heading St George for 15 months. While he will no longer work with the bank, he will act in an advisory role to BankSA, another Westpac unit.
Westpac executives are on the move.Credit: Getty Images
Critically, the reshuffle comes just months before the former ANZ banker Brian Hartzer taking charge of Westpac's Australian operations, a role that oversees the St George and flagship Westpac retail business.
For the past two years Mr Hartzer has worked to turn around the UK retail business of troubled Royal Bank of Scotland, and is seen by investors as the executive most likely to take charge from Mrs Kelly to oversee the $63 billion banking major.
The announcement of Mr Hartzer's appointment last November also coincided with the exit at the time of another top executive, Rob Coombe, as head of Westpac's retail business. Both men had been touted as chief executive candidates.
Mr Chapman's exit has paved the way for the Westpac's New Zealand boss, George Frazis, to return to Sydney, after the one-time National Australia Bank executive was named as the new head of St George.
After seeing Westpac's New Zealand business through a tough economy for the past three-and-a-half years, Mr Frazis is expected to bring a tougher approach to running St George, which like most banks is feeling the pressure from a sharp slowdown in lending.
Meanwhile Westpac's well-regarded operations boss, Peter Clare, will be tested running his own stand-alone business, after being named as the new head of Westpac New Zealand.
Mr Clare is another of the so-called ''Kelly Gang'' that has worked closely with the Westpac boss for a long time.
He joined her as she first moved from Commonwealth Bank to run St George. He then followed Mrs Kelly to Westpac before the regional lender was bought by the bigger bank in 2008.
The exit of Mr Chapman is a blow, given it comes in the midst of St George's expansion of the Bank of Melbourne franchise across Victoria.
Until taking the St George role in late 2010, Mr Chapman had for years resisted the overtures of Mrs Kelly to take a broader executive position inside Westpac.
Instead he preferred to remain in Adelaide with his family, running the BankSA business.
Mr Chapman, who is chairman of AFL club Adelaide Crows, is expected to eventually head BankSA's advisory board.