Jun 2015 Financial News

Bank CEO resigns...amid planning for major conference

Jun 18, 2015

The board of FirstCaribbean International Bank (FCI) on Friday accepted the resignation of Rik Parkhill as chief executive officer of the bank, effective December 31, 2015, according to a statement from the Barbados-headquartered, regional bank.

Parkhill is expected to be replaced by Gary Brown, a senior CIBC executive, effective January 1, 2016, subject to regulatory and government approvals.

In the statement, FirstCaribbean International said Parkhill would remain as CEO and continue leading the organisation until December 31, 2015. A full transition plan for the end of year has been established which focuses on face-to-face meetings with the new CEO and FCI’s stakeholder groups across the region, the bank said.

FCI advised of the following changes in the human resources function:

• Neil Brennan has been appointed to the position of managing director, human resources, effective June 15, 2015, subject to regulatory approvals. Brennan will join the executive team reporting to the CEO.

• Carolyn Lewis will assume role of deputy managing director, human resources. Lewis has acted as managing director for human resources for the past six months and has agreed to defer her planned departure from FCI in order to assist in the transition to a new managing director, human resources.

PPP forum

The announcement of Parkhill’s resignation came as the bank was putting the final touches on what it described as “a major regional conference focusing on Caribbean infrastructural development through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs).”

The conference is being hosted by CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank for the third successive year and “is fast positioning the bank as the regional leader in facilitating and financing PPPs.”

In a separate statement, the bank said that in its first two years, the conference attracted attendance at the highest political level as well as top international and regional executives and industry experts in the area of infrastructural development and PPPs.

The theme of this year’s conference is: Caribbean Infrastructure: Unlocking Economic Potential.

International, regional and local executives will be welcomed by managing director of CIBC FirstCaribbean’s Jamaica business, Nigel Holness while the bank’s chief executive officer Rik Parkhill will give opening remarks on day one of the conference.

The two-day conference starts today and end tomorrow at the Hyatt Ziva Rose Hall in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

It will focus on the key principles of the successful development of airport, tourism, water utilities, energy and social infrastructure.

Specifically, select regional case studies will be used to demonstrate how to ensure regional projects are suitably credit-enhanced to attract broader investor participation and unlock the full economic potential of infrastructural development in the Caribbean.

The conference will also feature international and regional investors, major infrastructure operators, rating agency infrastructure/project finance specialists and infrastructure project advisors from the private and public sector and multilateral organisations.

Some of the main items on the agenda are:

• types of regional projects that continue to attract international investment;

• techniques to increase the credit rating of projects in the region;

• holistic approaches to airport and cruise port redevelopment;

• the roll-out of key tourism development projects via public private partnerships;

• harnessing efficiencies to upgrade water utility infrastructure and the impact of renewable energy on the Caribbean energy mix.

CEO Parkhill said that he was looking forward to this year’s event adding that he was proud of how quickly the conference has grown into a major forum for international, multilateral and regional investors, governments and the private sector to engage with a view to building partnerships aimed at driving infrastructural development in the region.

CIBC FirstCaribbean is the largest, regionally-listed bank in the English and Dutchspeaking Caribbean serving over 500,000 accounts in 17 markets, through 2,900 staff, across 100 branches and offices.

 

Source:
Business Guardian, BG7
Thursday June 18, 2015