After weeks of resisting calls for him to step down, Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI), Mr Thierry Tanoh, finally threw in the towel yesterday.
In a terse statement, the bank said that his departure takes effect from today, March 12, 2014 and that he will also no longer be a director of the pan African lender. According to the statement, he has been immediately replaced by Mr Albert Essien, currently Deputy CEO/ Group Executive Director for Corporate and Investment Bank.
Tanoh who was appointed Group CEO in January 2013 saw his leadership come under immediate scrutiny after he spearheaded the removal of the bank’s Group Executive Director, Finance and Risk Mrs. Laurence Do Rego, in June last year. But the ousted Executive Director sent a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleging, among other things,
that the Chairman, Mr. Kolapo Lawson and Tanoh were attempting to sell non-core assets at values below market price and that both individuals ‘attempted’ to manipulate the 2012 results to enable the Group to show a much better 2013 growth. She also alleged that she was asked to write off debts owed by a real estate company Mr. Lawson chairs.
This resulted in SEC issuing a seven day ultimatum to the bank to reverse the disengagement of Do Rego. The Commission also engaged the services of KPMG to conduct an independent corporate governance audit.
Although the crisis led to the retirement of Lawson, Tanoh refused to reinstate Do Rego, insisting that he had done nothing wrong and would stay in his post despite calls by the core investor in the bank, the South African government-owned Public Investment Corporation’s (PIC) for his immediate dismissal.
Only last week, shareholders of the lender at an emergency meeting in Lome in Togo failed to vote on a resolution which could have forced him to step down. This was after PIC dropped a motion to create a seven member board in place of the current board which has 12 members.
Announcing his replacement yesterday, ETI Interim Chairman, André Siaka, said “We wish to thank Thierry Tanoh for his service to Ecobank and we wish him every success in the future. We believe that Mr Albert Essien has the experience and knowledge that Ecobank needs to take us forward as we continue to implement our strategy which is to deliver outstanding customer service, to improve long-term shareholder value and returns and to be the employer of choice in our markets.”
Speaking as the Board nominated him as the new Group CEO Albert Essien said, “I have been working for Ecobank for more than 20 years and I am proud of what we have achieved so far. I am committed to achieving our vision of building a world-class pan-African bank which contributes to the economic development and financial integration of Africa and to our mission of providing our retail and wholesale customers with convenient, accessible and reliable financial products and services. We have faced challenges at the governance level in the recent
past, but they are not insurmountable. We have put in place a detailed governance action plan which will strengthen us to meet these challenges. We have put in place measures to improve our controls and systems as required, further to completion of all internal and external reviews.”
The Board of Directors of ETI also announced that, in line with the SEC directive, do Rego had been reinstated as Group Executive Director of Finance and Risk with immediate effect.