Avanteos head follows flight to NAB

Commonwealth Bank of Australia owned wrap platform Avanteos has lost its chief executive, Serg Premier, following his signing with rival banking giant National Australia Bank (NAB).

Premier, who took over as chief executive of Avanteos in September 2003, becomes one of eight CBA executives who have left to join NAB in the past six months.

As of next month Premier will head up NAB’s cash management and eBusiness unit.

Premier has been in charge at Avanteos for the past 18 months and replaced Mark Papendieck, who later joined Perpetual to focus on growing its WealthFocus platform.

As for Premier, within a month of his appointment at CBA in late 2003 he added the responsibility of general manager distribution and marketing to his brief, following the departure of Greg Newman at the end of a three year contract.

Previously Premier was CBA’s general manager for major projects, including re-engineering the bank’s Eftpos business, and was also a former chief executive officer of GE Capital Finance.

CBA, meanwhile, has appointed current Avanteos chief operating officer Chris Stevens into the role of acting chief executive of the subsidiary in light of Premier’s departure.

NAB’s haul of CBA executives over the past half-year also includes former CBA head of institutional and business services Michael Ullmer as chief financial officer late last year.

Ullmer’s appointment was simultaneous with NAB’s signing of former Citigroup chief executive Ahmed Fahour to its newly created role of chief executive officer Australia.

Other appointments, which are part of an ongoing senior management restructure at NAB, include CBA’s former head of risk management Michael Hamar as its chief risk officer.