Laurentian Bank Appoints Eric Provost as CEO

Laurentian Bank has appointed a new CEO and a new chair of the board following a significant IT outage that occurred last week.

On Monday, Eric Provost was named as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Canada’s seventh-largest bank, taking over from Rania Llewellyn. Provost, who previously served as Laurentian’s Group Head of Personal and Commercial Banking, now assumes the top leadership position.

Additionally, the bank announced that Michael Boychuk has been appointed as the new Chair of its Board of Directors, succeeding Michael Mueller, who resigned from the board.

In a statement, Boychuk expressed confidence in Eric Provost’s ability to steer the organization towards an enhanced customer experience and operational efficiency, especially in light of recent challenges.

The leadership changes come in the wake of a mainframe outage experienced by the bank during a planned IT maintenance update last week. Laurentian Bank assured that throughout this period, customer data and financial information remained secure.

Eric Provost’s immediate priority as CEO will be to rebuild trust with the bank’s customers and address the repercussions of the outage. He emphasized the importance of regaining customer trust and outlined plans for enhancing operational efficiency and growth across all business lines once the issues related to the outage are resolved. As a first step, the bank announced its intention to reverse all monthly service fees for September at the earliest opportunity.

Rania Llewellyn had been appointed CEO in late 2020, making her the first female CEO of a major Canadian lender. Her mandate was to oversee a three-year turnaround plan for the bank, but this plan faced challenges.

In July, just two years into the turnaround plan, the bank initiated a “strategic review” of its operations, a move often interpreted by investors as a potential prelude to a company sale. However, a sale did not materialize.

Laurentian Bank plans to provide more details about its future plans when it reports its fourth-quarter results on December 7 and will unveil a renewed strategic plan during an investor day in early 2024.

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