Barclays promotes head of consumer business to chief operating officer

BARCLAYS has appointed Alistair Currie as its chief operating officer (COO), replacing Mark Ashton-Rigby in a management reshuffle by chief executive CS Venkatakrishnan.

Currie previously headed the lender’s consumer banking and payments business. He will be replaced in that role by Vim Maru, who joined from Lloyds Banking Group.

The new COO appointment on Wednesday (Dec 7) elevated an executive from Barclays’ consumer business to one of its most powerful roles. This came at an inflection point in the long-running debate over resource allocation between that business and Barclays’ glitzier but riskier investment bank.

Venkatakrishnan said on Nov 29 that the investment bank “may shrink relative to the rest of Barclays” over time.

This was a change in tone from the previous full-throated support of the investment bank, a hallmark of previous chief executive Jes Staley’s stint.

Then, the resources poured into the investment bank split Barclays investors, with one activist unsuccessfully pushing for the investment bank to be pared back.

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Staley argued that the investment bank provided “counter-cyclical” benefits by doing well in tough markets. This was vindicated in recent years, but the unit’s record was blighted by an error this year, after it was fined for selling more securities than allowed in the United States.

The changes also came at a time when Barclays’ executive committee of senior managers took on increased prominence in the running of the bank, while Venkatakrishnan is being treated for cancer.

The chief executive, known internally as Venkat, said last month that he would undergo 12 to 16 weeks of treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and that his prognosis was good.

In addition to being chief operating officer, Currie will run BX, an operation that provides technology and other support services to all parts of Barclays.

Currie was born in Scotland, grew up in Hong Kong, and worked at HSBC for 18 years before joining Australian lender ANZ to work on its digital transformation. He joined Barclays in 2017. REUTERS