CIBC Caribbean Appoints New Country Management Team

The Caribbean’s leading financial services company, CIBC Caribbean, has announced a change to its Country Management, that will place greater emphasis on relationships with key stakeholder groups, including its employees, clients and the community.

The bank currently operates in 10 Caribbean countries, having reduced its geographical footprint from 17 countries to 10 over the past three years.

In making the announcement today, Chief Executive Officer, Mark St. Hill, noted that leading the regional Country Management team, is the bank’s newly appointed Chief Country Management Officer, Ms. Donna Wellington, formerly Managing Director for Barbados & OECS, under whom all country-related activities will be aligned.

Donna Wellington is no stranger to Caribbean banking, having joined CIBC 20 years ago, holding progressively senior roles in the bank. She served as CIBC Caribbean’s Managing Director for the eastern Caribbean region since 2013, and between 2016 and 2021 was President of the Barbados Bankers Association, Director in the Barbados Private Sector Association (BPSA) and an active participant in the Barbados Social Partnership.

In this regard she represents the BPSA as a participant in the Social Partnership Oversight Committee tasked with oversight of the Sustainable Recovery Plan for Barbados.

Mr. St. Hill noted: “Donna’s vast knowledge of banking and her commitment to client service makes her the perfect choice for this role. We know that she will bring the same energy to developing our business in the rest of the region that she brought to managing our operations in Barbados and the OECS.”

He added: “This change to the organization’s structure will mean that our other current Managing Directors with responsibility for the bank’s Operating Companies will transition to different types of roles in the organisation. CIBC Caribbean’s Managing Directors in The Cayman Islands and Jamaica, Mark McIntyre and Nigel Holness will be appointed the Chairmen of the Cayman and Jamaica businesses respectively, while taking early retirement from their day-to-day duties.

“Additionally, our MD in the Bahamas, Dr. Jacqui Bend, will take early retirement and transition to an assignment designed to assist us in our transformation & governance programme, while our MD in Trinidad, Anthony Seeraj, will remain with the bank until the end of fiscal. During this time his new remit will be to help us secure a new Head of Country for Trinidad, while assisting in a number of business development activities in Trinidad, after which he too will take retirement. We are also undertaking a search for a new Head of Country in The Bahamas to succeed Dr. Bend.”

Mr. St. Hill went on to add: “We feel extremely fortunate that these hugely experienced individuals will continue to be a part of our team, albeit in different capacities. We are also excited to announce a further evolution of our talent of professionals, to meet the demands of the new CIBC Caribbean, as we have appointed a new crop of Heads of Country to take over in five of our jurisdictions.

Mr. Kemar Polius will succeed Ms. Wellington at the helm of the bank’s Barbados operations;
Mr. Gemel Sobers has been appointed the Head of Country for The Cayman Islands;
Ms. Annique Dawkins is the Head of Country for Jamaica;

All Heads of Country will report to our newly appointed Chief Country Management Officer.”

All appointments are subject to regulatory approval. St. Hill added: “We are shifting to a more country-focused performance model, having successfully optimized our geographical footprint from 17 countries to 10 and from 72 to 45 branches. This alignment emphasizes, at the country level, business development and performance, client facing activities and people leadership as we continue to embed our new corporate culture, which we started work on over the past year.”

He further explained that the new Heads of Country will prioritize the development of relationships, with staff, clients and within the community.

“Our stated goal is to make our clients ambitions into reality. To do this, we must be closer to our clients, learning what they want from us and finding the best way to make it happen. A key component of that is ensuring our employees have the right tools, and the best working environment to deliver for our clients, so our Heads of Country will focus heavily on that, while ensuring we keep our commitment to contributing to the development of our communities.”

The CIBC Caribbean CEO went on to list a number of major accomplishments of the regional bank over the past few years.

“We have rationalized and consolidated our geographical footprint since 2016. We have enhanced our client experience and made several other structural adjustments such as integrating all our business segments under one Chief Commercial Officer, centralized key functions, launched an Agile way of working to give us a greater competitive edge, centralized our digital sales through our LoanStore, and revamped our Call Centers into Contact Centers. This is one more piece of the puzzle as we continue to develop our business capabilities and effectiveness.”

The new changes to the organization become effective on 1st March 2025.