Courtney Campbell will depart NCB on July 20.

Courtney Campbell, who recently resigned as vice-president for retail business at National Commercial Bank, is heading to the GraceKennedy group to a holding company established by conglomerate for First Global financial services assets, Grace's CEO, Douglas Orane, confirmed yesterday.

"The position was created to ensure that GraceKennedy group gain the synergies from its financial activities through focused leadership," Orane told Wednesday Business.

Non-banking assets

The setting up of First Global Holding, in which will reside the banking and fund manage-ment companies controlled by GraceKennedy's GK Investments, is part of a restructuring aimed at meeting emerging central bank criteria to ensure arms-length arrangements and prevent the intermingling of a group's banking and non-banking assets.

Ironically, the shift started under Don Wehby, GraceKennedy's former deputy CEO and head of GK Investments, the vehicle used by Grace to control what it considers its non-core businesses.

GraceKennedy chairman and CEO Douglas Orane - File photos

Since last September Wehby has been a senator and minister in the ministry of finance where his responsibilities include regulatory issues.

Among the entities that will fall within Campbell's purview are First Global Bank, First Global Financial Services as well as the GraceKennedy-controlled One1 Financial in Trinidad and Signia, an investment bank in Barbados, in which the Jamaican conglomerate is a minority shareholder.

First Global Holding will have its own board, but operationally Campbell will report to Joe Taffe, who has been acting as CEO of GK Investments since Wehby joined the government.

"(Campbell's) appointment demonstrates GraceKennedy's continued commitment to growth in the financial services industry in Jamaica and the Caribbean," Orane said.

Campbell is to be succeeded at NCB by Audrey Tugwell-Henry, an executive at the Bank of Nova Scotia, whose last post was senior vice president for retail and electronic banking.

sabrina.gordon@gleanerjm.com