KUALA LUMPUR: CIMB Bank chief executive officer Datuk Sulaiman Mohd Tahir, who resigned on Friday, is understood to be heading to take up the top position at rival AMMB Holdings Bhd
(AmBank).
The group managing director post at AmBank has been vacant since the resignation of Ashok Ramamurthy, whose contract ended on April 1. In the interim, Datuk Mohamed Azmi Mahmood has been appointed as the acting group managing director of AmBank.
CIMB said that Sulaiman’s resignation will take effect on Nov 22 and he will be “on gardening leave with immediate effect”.
“Gardening leave” is when an employer withdraws an employee, usually those in high-level contracts, from their duties, requiring them to remain at home during their notice period. The practice is often used when the employee is believed to be leaving to join a competitor.
According to CIMB Group’s website, Sulaiman, 52, has been holding the position of CEO of CIMB Bank since May 1 this year.
Before this, he was the group’s head of consumer sales and distribution division, a position he has held since July 2005.
An accounting graduate from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Australi, Sulaiman has served CIMB Group for 25 years.
The board of CIMB Bank had agreed to appoint the group chief financial officer, Shahnaz Jammal, as person-in-charge of the bank in the interim period.
It said the board had requested the group nomination and remuneration committee to start the process to identify the next CEO for the bank.
Tengku Datuk Zafrul Aziz, the group chief executive of CIMB Group said: “We respect Datuk Sulaiman’s decision to move on. Sulaiman has been instrumental in the growth of our consumer franchise and has contributed significantly to the CIMB success story. We thank him for his efforts and wish him well for the future.”
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