It’s a business story as old as time: two internal candidates are in the running for the role of chief executive – one wins, and the other quietly departs soon after.
So when NAB’s new chief executive, Andrew Irvine, beat Rachel Slade in the race to replace Ross McEwan in February, you might have expected that the clock was ticking on Slade’s time at NAB.This is unquestionably NAB’s most important division, and the role was previously held by Irvine himself. Ana Marinkovic will shift across from small business banking to take Slade’s old job.
Heck, Irvine even cited Slade and Marinkovic’s track record of “getting the basics of banking right” in his press release; we can almost hear McEwan nodding in approval.Since joining NAB in 2017 from Westpac, Slade has done an excellent job helping simplify the bank’s retail operations, first as chief customer experience officer, and then from 2020 as head of personal banking .