Ian Narev: Commonwealth Bank CEO

Ian Narev’s parents both survived the Holocaust. They left post-war Europe to start a new life in New Zealand were they met and got married. They shortened the family name from Narewczewitz to Narev.

Ian was actually a child star at the age of 12 appearing in “Children of Fire Mountain”, the 1979 television series in his native New Zealand.  Instead of focusing on acting he change priorities and did very well in his academics. He graduated from the University of Auckland with a degree in English and law. He was also the Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review.

Ian did his masters degree in international corporate law in 1994 at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. He was the top student of his year. Ian earned a Masters of Laws in International Relations in 1998 from the New York University where he was a Hauser Scholar.  

He worked as a lawyer specializing in mergers and acquisition then later joined consulting firm McKinsey & Co. as a consultant in the financial institutions practice of the firm, working in strategy and organizational change engagements for four of the 10 largest financial institutions in the U.S.  Ian worked in McKinsey’s New York, Sydney, and Auckland offices between 1998 and 2007. He became a global partner in 2003, and from 2005 until he left in 2007 was head of the New Zealand office of McKinsey.

Ian joined Commonwealth Bank, one of the largest banks in Australia and the world in 2007. He was Group Head of Strategy and was responsible for corporate strategy development, mergers and acquisitions and major cross-business strategic initiatives. He led the Group’s $2.1 billion acquisition of Bankwest in 2008 and the Group’s investment in Aussie Home Loans.

Then on January 2009 until September 2011 Ian was Group Executive, Business and Private Banking, which is one of the Group’s six operating divisions. It has about 200,000 business customers, 1 million trading customers, and employs over 4,000 people.

For his outstanding work Ian became the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Commonwealth Bank on December 2011. 

Gail Kelly: Top Banker

It’s a common practice for some executives to have protégés and fast-track them to one day run the company. For Gail Kelly she worked at major banks in Australia and became the CEO for two banks. For her it can really be said that it was her talent that brought her to the top more than being a protégé of a more senior executive.

Rising to the highest post of a company is challenging enough and not everyone gets that lofty position. For Kelly it’s been tougher. Unfortunately the way human society is setup the woman is usually the one expected to raise the kids and take care of the household.  So unless you partner is willing to be a househusband (in Kelly’s case her husband is a pediatrician) it’s one hell of a balancing act.

Kelly only gave birth twice but has four children because she had triplets. Imagine having to raise three babies of the same age at the same time. As she recalls there was a time she forgot to drop one of her kids to school only realizing the child was at the back seat of the car when she was already at the company parking lot. There was also an instant when she had one of child admitted to a hospital (where her husband worked) so she could get some much needed sleep.

Her banking career has been marked by outstanding work.  Originally from South Africa, she started as a teller in 1980 for a South African bank. She quickly rose to managerial positions. In 1997 Kelly and her husband decided to move to Australia. Applying with the four major Australian banks she was hired in a senior position at Commonwealth Bank.

Once again she proved her worth and rose through the ranks. She was so good that in 2002 another bank, St. George hired her as CEO. There Kelly increased profitability and capitalization. This led to rumors of her returning as CEO of Commonwealth Bank in 2005 when its CEO was set to retire.

She stayed on at St. George Bank then became CEO of another major bank, Westpac in 2008. St. George was subsequently taken over by Westpac the same year.

Gail Kelly has simply been a notch above the rest.