Club president Dave Barham announced Andrew Thorburn’s appointment is a “significant step forward” for Essendon.
Andrew Thorburn : Essendon | Royal Commission
Andrew Thorburn is an Australian-based businessman, Andrew Thorburn is the new Essendon Football club’s Chief Executive Officer and a former CEO of Bank of NZ (BNZ), and also of National Australia Bank (NAB).
Thorburn joined ASB Bank in AUCKLAND, NZ in 1986. He moved to Sydney to join the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in 1997, and then joined St George Bank in 2002.
He moved to NAB in January 2005 as Head of Retail Banking. In 2008 he was appointed to be CEO of BNZ, and in 2014 the CEO of NAB.
At NAB he moved to divest of non core assets and focus on Aust/NZ. He launched a transformation of NAB in 2017 involving greater investment in technology, a reduction in costs, and an investment in business banking.
Andrew Thorburn Essendon
Essendon has appointed former NAB boss Andrew Thorburn as its new chief executive.
Thorburn was NAB chief executive from 2014 to 2019 but resigned after the bank’s practices were heavily criticised in the banking royal commission’s final report.
He replaces Xavier Campbell, who resigned as chief executive in August after nine years at the helm.
Thorburn is currently leading the review of the Bombers’ football operations and will take over as CEO on November 1.
The 57-year-old was also a member of the panel that selected Brad Scott as senior coach.
In a letter to Bombers members on Monday, Essendon president David Barham described Thorburn’s appointment as “a significant step forward for the club”.
“In Andrew, we have secured a highly credentialed leader with a proven track record in development, and building the leadership capabilities of his people,” Barham wrote.
“Andrew’s focus will be on running Essendon like a club, with a renewed focus on our members and the core reason for which we exist — football.
“Our recent appointments of Brad Scott and today with Andrew, demonstrate our commitment to leadership and providing the right environment to ensure we achieve sustained success as a club.”
Campbell’s exit came after a difference of opinion with Barham over former coach Ben Rutten’s sacking.
Royal Commission
The banking royal commission report has claimed its first high-profile victims, with National Australia Bank’s chief executive officer Andrew Thorburn and chairman Ken Henry quitting their positions.
The two were subject to scathing assessments in the report from commissioner Kenneth Hayne.
Hayne said that after having heard from both men he was “not as confident as I would wish to be that the lessons of the past have been learned.
More particularly, I was not persuaded that NAB is willing to accept the necessary responsibility for deciding, for itself, what is the right thing to do, and then having its staff act accordingly. I thought it telling that Dr Henry seemed unwilling to accept any criticism of how the board had dealt with some issues.
I thought it telling that Mr Thorburn treated all issues of fees for no service as nothing more than carelessness combined with system deficiencies … Overall, my fear – that there may be a wide gap between the public face NAB seeks to show and what it does in practice – remains.
In a statement late Thursday, NAB said Thorburn would finish at the end of this month while Henry would leave the board once a new CEO had been appointed.
The board will search internationally for a CEO while also considering internal candidates, the statement said.
Philip Chronican, a NAB director with extensive banking experience will act as CEO from March 1 until a replacement is found.
It has been speculated that Mike Baird, former NSW premier, a senior executive at NAB could get the CEO post.
Thorburn, who has been CEO since 2005, said he had had a number of conversations with Henry this week.
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