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Deutsche Bank manager Manfred Knof will be the new CEO of Commerzbank on January 1, 2021. He succeeds Martin Zielke, as the Frankfurt-based MDax group announced on Saturday night after a board meeting. The staff is still subject to the approval of the supervisory authorities.
Lawyer Knof has been running Deutsche Bank’s private client business since August 1, 2019. Deputy Chief Karl von Rohr will initially take over, as a spokeswoman said. Knof previously worked for the Allianz insurance group. The 55-year-old is “an experienced senior manager who is strong in implementation and has proven himself in a wide variety of tasks in the financial services industry,” said Hans-Jörg Vetter, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Commerzbank. Knof said, “I have great respect for this new assignment.”
With the appointment of Knof, the cousin, who had just started as chief controller in early August, organized Zielke’s successor with surprising speed. After strong criticism from investors, Zielke announced his resignation in early July. The bank then decided to terminate the contract with the CEO, who has been in office since the beginning of May 2016, no later than December 31.
Roland Boekhout, former head of direct bank ING-Diba (now ING Germany), and CFO Bettina Orlopp, who has been Commerzbank’s CEO since January, were seen as promising candidates for Zielke’s successor as CEO. The two were not selected now.
Zielke had admitted that the measures decided in fall 2019 were not decisive enough to make Commerzbank more profitable when interest rates were low. The US fund Cerberus, the institute’s second largest shareholder, had accused Commerzbank’s management of having “blatantly failed over the years.”
Commerzbank’s new management faces severe cuts: internal discussions about hardening the austerity course go on for months. The number of the last 40,000 full-time positions could be reduced by as much as a quarter. Of the 1,000 branches, there could be only 200 left where clients can get advice.
