TD’s Leadership Shake-Up Raises CEO Succession Questions

(Bloomberg) -- The planned retirement of Teri Currie, Toronto-Dominion Bank’s group head of Canadian personal banking, along with a series of changes among the company’s senior executive team, is throwing eventual succession plans for the lender’s chief executive officer into question.

Currie will retire from her position at the end of January, to be succeeded by Michael Rhodes, Toronto-Dominion said Thursday. She will join the bank’s U.S. board. Greg Braca, group head of the company’s U.S. retail bank, will be appointed to the newly created position of vice chair of TD Bank in the U.S. Leo Salom, group head of wealth management, is succeeding Braca as group head of U.S. retail.

“We had previously thought Teri Currie and Greg Braca were both candidates to replace Bharat Masrani” as CEO, Royal Bank of Canada analyst Darko Mihelic said in a note to investors. “With Teri’s retirement now announced and Greg moving to a new role,” along with additional leadership changes, “succession is now even more difficult to predict.”

The changes come not long after Riaz Ahmed, formerly the bank’s chief financial officer, took over leadership of TD Securities. Riaz has been seen as another possible successor to Masrani, 65, who’s been CEO since 2014 and has worked for the bank since 1987, when he joined as a commercial-banking trainee.

“Losing some well-known top executives once considered CEO candidates adds to some anxiety about succession,” Mihelic said. “TD is quick to point out it has a deep and experienced management team and we believe this to be true.”

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