The former PM of New Zealand takes up a chairmanship role at ANZ's business in the country.

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, which as reported this week is spinning off more business units amid restructuring, has is bringing in the former prime minister of New Zealand, Sir John Key, to be its new chairman next year, replacing a predecessor who retires in January.

John Judge, chair of ANZ Zealand is retiring, having held his existing post since July 2012. 

Key’s appointment to the board is effective from 18 October 2017 and will become its new chair in January. A graduate of the University of Canterbury, Key started his career in banking and finance in New Zealand before heading overseas where he became Head of Global Foreign Exchange with Merrill Lynch. He was also made a member of the Foreign Exchange Committee of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He was a member of parliament for Helensville from 2002 and Prime Minister of New Zealand from 2008 until 2016 when he announced that he would be retiring from politics.

ANZ New Zealand’s other independent directors are Tony Carter, Mark Verbiest and Joan Withers. The executive directors on the board are ANZ New Zealand CEO and group executive David Hisco, ANZ Group chief risk officer and group executive Nigel Williams, and ANZ Group CEO Shayne Elliott. ANZ Group CFO Michelle Jablko is an alternate director for Elliott.

As reported recently, the bank has continued to offload business units in a restructuring drive. At the end of last year it sold its Asian wealth management operations, joining a number of banks, such as those from Europe that took this step from a failure to achieve sufficient profitable growth. The process is seen very much as part of CEO Elliott's desire to focus the bank on more "core" areas of business.