John Orr, appointed FCIB chief executive officer, August 25.

Career banker John D Orr, whose track record covers retail investment and merchant banking, has now taken over as chief executive officer of Barbados-based FirstCaribbean International Bank (FCIB), effective August 25, from Charles Pink, who has resigned.

Orr's appointment was first announced back in May when FCIB advised the market of Pink's departure. He was said to have left the bank at his own request to pursue new challenges.

Orr has worked 13 years with Canadian Imperial Bank of Com-merce (CIBC), parent company of FCIB, in charge of world markets and more latterly, as executive vice-president and overseer of the Canadian bank's international retail-banking portfolio.

The latter responsibility gave him responsibility for CIBC's operations in the Caribbean and Asia.

He has run a bank before, as CEO of Amicus Bank. Amicus had 2.1 million accounts. FCIB has 800,000.

Negotiations

Orr was also central in the 2006 negotiations under which CIBC bought out Barclay's stake in FirstCaribbean - the regional bank was created from a merger of the Caribbean assets of the UK and Canadian bank in 2002 - in the process, upping its stake to more than 90 per cent.

FCIB has operations in 17 Caribbean markets, sporting assets of under US$12 billion.

Orr's appointment comes two months behind Royal Bank of Canada's acquisition of RBTT Financial Corporation, to create RBC Caribbean, a more expansive network than FCIB's at US$13billion.

FirstCaribbean chairman Michael Mansoor acknowledged that the banking environment was changing, but said Orr was the right man to handle the business at this time.

Right combination

"I have worked with John for several years and know he has the right combination of skills to lead FirstCaribbean at the current stage of our company's development and in the present economic environment, which will be more challenging than in previous years," said Mansoor.

The new CEO, who has declared himself excited at the challenges and opportunities of his new role, will be touring the Caribbean over several months to introduce himself to the regulators, FCIB staff and customers, and government officials, the bank said.

business@gleanerjm.com