Vietcombank recruits foreigners for the first time in its leadership team
Today (October 20), the Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) made an important appointment decision: for the first time hiring a foreign expert to directly develop its business sector.
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Vietcombank appointed Mr. Thomas William Tobin as CEO of retail services. This is the first foreign leader to directly participate in business operations and development in the bank's nearly 55-year history. |
Specifically, Vietcombank appointed Mr. Thomas William Tobin as CEO of the retail services division. This is the first foreign leader to directly participate in business operations and development in the bank's nearly 55-year history.
In the state-owned commercial banking sector of Vietnam, with 50-60 years of operation, there has never been a senior and directly specialized leader who is a foreigner. Accordingly, Vietcombank is the first case.
Mr. Nghiem Xuan Thanh, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vietcombank, said that this is an important decision of this bank, aiming to create innovation, one of the steps to promote the retail banking strategy that has been set.
According to Mr. Thanh, the retail banking development strategy is also the main axis in the orientation to make Vietcombank become the leading bank in Vietnam as well as in the region. And in this orientation, finding and selecting leading experts with a lot of experience who are foreigners will help speed up the process.
This is an important decision of this bank, aiming to create innovation, one of the steps to promote the retail banking strategy that has been set. Mr. Nghiem Xuan Thanh, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vietcombank |
In Vietnam, some commercial banks with strong retail operations such as VPBank, Techcombank, VIB… all have foreign executive personnel in their departments and divisions. This trend is expanding and Vietcombank is the first case of “breaking the rules” in the state-owned commercial bank sector, or with a large state ownership ratio.
The new employee at Vietcombank, Mr. Thomas William Tobin, has many years of experience working in senior management positions at leading international companies, especially with strengths in the fields of electronic payments and mobile payments, retail and asset management, commercial banking and corporate customer relations.
Prior to joining Vietcombank, Mr. Thomas William Tobin worked at Visa Group, participating in managing the markets of Hong Kong and Macao, Taiwan, Mongolia and Korea; responsible for business results and growth of business activities in the Northeast Asia region; supporting Visa customers including issuers, buyers, sellers and other partners; implementing mobile payments in Hong Kong and preparing for electronic payments, mobile payments and security keys in Taiwan and Korea. In Vietnam, this is also a familiar figure who held the leadership position of HSBC from 2007 to 2011; was the CEO and leader of HSBC in charge of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos in managing business units and supporting and managing strategic investment activities at Techcombank (20%) and Bao Viet Insurance (18%), as well as in the strategy to make HSBC a leading foreign bank and the first 100% foreign-owned bank established in Vietnam. Previously, Mr. Thomas William Tobin participated in many markets such as Canada, Sri Lanka, Brunei, Singapore. |
According to Vneconomy
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