NAB finance chief Craig Drummond surprises market with resignation, says he’s done

National Australia Bank’s group executive of finance and strategy Craig Drummond has shocked the industry with his resignation, saying his job at the bank was done.

With the announcement coming in early Friday, Drummond said NAB was now “stronger and safer” after his tenure as CFO, and that it was a good time for him to move on.

“I believe that now is the right time for me to consider the next step in my career,” he added.

Drummond has been hailed as the lifesaver who rescued the bank from drowning with its sinking overseas assets. Over the past two years, he launched the largest capital raising in Australia’s corporate history, and successfully led NAB’s withdrawal from the US and UK, including the sale of UK Commercial Real Estate and SGA portfolios, and the demerger and IPO of the Clydesdale Bank.

Brought in by former NAB chief Cameron Clyne, Drummond was poached from Bank of America Merrill Lynch in 2013 (with a $6.5 million bonus), and has worked well with current chief Andrew Thorburn, who said Drummond was “pivotal” through NAB’s period of change.

“Craig has completed what he wanted to achieve with us and has decided that now is the time for him to move on to the next phase in his career,” Thorburn said. “I will miss his wise counsel and wish him every success in the future, knowing that he will contribute at the highest level, as he has at NAB.”

There is no word yet on what Drummond’s next role will be, but Fairfax reports it is believed he hopes to be the chief executive of a large company. The 55-year-old had missed out on the top job at NAB in 2014 after the board replaced Cameron Clyne with Thorburn.

He will be succeeded by NAB’s current executive general manager of finance, Gary Lennon, who will officially step up to the role on March 15.

Lennon comes from Deutsche Bank, where he was finance chief of the corporate and investment bank in Asia-Pacific for over three years, after stints as CFO of Deutsche Bank Japan and Deutsche in Australia and New Zealand.