MOVES-RBC's strategy chief to depart, memo shows
March 20 (Reuters) - Royal Bank of Canada's chief administrative and strategy officer, Christoph Knoess, will be leaving the country's largest bank after a four-year stint there, according to a memo seen by Reuters on Wednesday.
Legal chief Maria Douvas, who joined the firm in 2021, will take on the additional role of chief administrative and strategy officer, the memo said.
Knoess, a former McKinsey consultant, joined the Canadian lender in 2019 and oversaw the bank's key initiatives including cost reduction at its California-based unit, City National.
However, City National has been facing several financial headwinds of late, leading it to cut jobs and make management changes.
RBC has seen high-profile departures in recent months. Last year, Jacqui Allard, who was leading the bank's mortgage, unsecured lending and automotive businesses in addition to the its Caribbean banking and U.S. cross-border banking business, left the lender to join peer Bank of Nova Scotia.
RBC is also set to close its C$13.5 billion ($9.96 billion) purchase of HSBC's Canada unit this month. The deal is touted to further tighten the country's top lender's grip on the market. ($1 = 1.3557 Canadian dollars) (Reporting by Jaiveer Singh Shekhawat in Bengaluru and Nivedita Balu in Toronto; Editing by Maju Samuel)
