Bank of New York Mellon named Thomas P. (Todd) Gibbons to become CFO, succeeding vice chairman and finance chief Bruce Van Saun, who plans to leave the company after a transition period to pursue new opportunities.
Gibbons is currently the company’s chief risk officer, the position he held at Bank of New York for nearly a decade before its merger with Mellon Financial early in 2007.
Van Saun was a major player in the huge combination, along with the challenges faced by the banking industry. In a CFO interview in January 2007 he described the steps leading up to the deal, along with the challenges facing the banking business. The interview continued with
an exclusive second part on CFO.com.
Van Saun, who joined Bank of New York as CFO in 1997, had taken on line responsibilities for the company’s asset management and market-related businesses in 2006. But he had agreed to resume the CFO duties when the $16.5 billion merger with Mellon was announced late that year. The megadeal was completed in July 2007.
In addition to his risk duties at Bank of New York, Gibbons served as its CFO for about a year prior to the merger.
“Todd has the experience and insight we will need to lead the industry in the quality and transparency of our financial reporting, to deliver the kind of value our shareholders expect and to relentlessly pursue our goal of outperforming our peers,” said BNY-Mellon CEO Robert P. Kelly.
Succeeding Gibbons as risk officer will be Brian G. Rogan, currently CEO of issuer, treasury, and broker-dealer services. Karen B. Peetz, currently CEO of Global Corporate Trust, will succeed Rogan in the issuer, treasury & broker-dealer services role.
Under Gibbons, Bank of New York “dramatically enhanced its risk profile in the years leading up to the merger,” according to the company, which also credited him with a key role helping the bank navigate recent turbulence in the financial markets.
Gibbons joined Bank of New York in 1986, holding top management positions in the capital markets business, including head of global treasury, with responsibility for asset and liability management, funding, money market trading, swaps and derivative products.
Prior to the merger with Mellon, Van Saun had overseen a major BNY asset swap with JPMorgan Chase, a complicated deal that exchanged BNY’s 338 retail branches for JPMorgan Chase’s global corporate trust business. Van Saun then helped the bank and two other firms form a new trade execution and order management company, BNY ConvergeEx Group.
“It was always our view that consolidation in our space, the trust and custody banking segment, was inevitable,” Van Saun told CFO early last year. “It’s good to be the first mover and try to lead that effort, as opposed to being a follower.”