Banking on a new leader

Following a protracted and costly search for a new CEO, on June 21 PKO BP finally settled on a new person to permanently lead the group. The executive board of state-controlled PKO chose Rafał Juszczak for the position he has held on an interim basis since April.

Juszczak joined PKO in 2005 as managing director of the bank's corporate banking division, after having worked for Citibank Polska. He is a graduate of the University of Gdańsk and also holds a Master's degree in banking and finance from the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Rouen.

PKO lost its previous chief executive in September, when Sławomir Skrzypek left to become chief of the National Bank of Poland. The bank has been facing stiff competition in recent months, which is expected to increase when Unicredit's Pekao and Bank BPH complete their merger, overtaking PKO as Poland's largest bank. Analysts say that PKO needs to restructure and cut internal bureaucracy if it is to compete effectively with foreign-controlled competition.

"We want to speed up the development of our retail and corporate banking arms, making PKO BP the bank of choice for all big Polish firms. We also want to capitalize on the fact the Treasury is our biggest shareholder so we become the number one bank for all state-controlled companies," Juszczak said.

The selection process for the new CEO hit the headlines earlier this year after the government suggested former Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz as chief executive, despite Marcinkiewicz's lack of experience in the financial sector. (Reuters)