Executive Chairman of CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank, Michael Mansoor, is retiring.
The news was relayed by the bank’s chief executive officer Rik Parkhill while delivering welcome remarks Thursday at a ceremony to rename the bank’s flagship building at Warren’s the Michael Mansoor Building.
Parkhill said Mansoor had advised the board of directors earlier that day of his intention to step down on October 31, the end of the bank’s fiscal year.
Mansoor was at the helm when London-based Barclays Bank PLC and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce based in Toronto, combined their retail, corporate and offshore Caribbean banking operations and launched First Caribbean International Bank in 2002, with CIBC becoming the major shareholder four years later. The two banking entities adopted the branding CIBC FirstCaribbean in 2011.
Speaking at Thursday’s ceremony, Mansoor said: “Although the historical heritage of CIBC?and Barclays over the decades is undisputed, we did something very special in 2002 when we merged these two organizations in 15 countries and created the largest single bank in the region.
“Today we have an integrated bank that is well positioned to be inherently successful and [to] serve as an agent of transformation in each of the countries in which we operate.”
Mansoor told the audience, which included governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank Sir Dwight Venner, that although he was leaving the executive of CIBC FirstCaribbean at a time of challenge and regional adversity, he was confident it was being left in the hands of the best management team in the industry.
Delivering the feature address, the Prime Minister Freundel Stuart described Mansoor as the “person whom history summoned” to take a leadership role in the birth of a regional bank at a time when the social environment was ripe for such an institution. (GC)
