As part of the changes, the Spanish bank is combining individual countries' retail and commercial banking businesses under a new global unit, which will be headed by Daniel Barriuso, and creating a new digital consumer bank area that will be led by Jose Luis de Mora, Santander said in a statement late Monday.
The moves are aimed at simplifying the business and helping the company reach profitability targets. They will likely reduce management layers and may lead to some job cuts, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified discussing nonpublic information.
The new management structure will result in five units: retail and commercial, digital consumer bank, payments, wealth management and insurance as well as corporate and investment banking.
The Spanish bank last year named Grisi, who had been running the Mexico business, as the company's chief executive officer, a role he took on at the start of 2023. A string of hires and management changes followed, including the exit of Antonio Simoes, who had been head of Europe and was seen as a possible CEO candidate. The bank in April hired Christiana Riley, a longtime Deutsche Bank AG executive, as head of its North American and Mexican operations, starting Oct. 1.
An expansion into U.S. investment banking is also in the works, tapping several new hires from the ranks of Credit Suisse.
Santander will align the way it reports financial results to the new model starting in January 2024, with the five global businesses becoming the new primary segments for the group, while country- and region-specific data will become secondary segments, it said.
Santander's revamp closely
Santander adopted a regional approach to managing its business in 2019, and a year later rolled out a 'One Santander' strategy, to which chairman Ana Botin often refers. That strategy was aimed at increasing connectivity, the company says on its website.
With businesses from Spain to the United Kingdom, Brazil and
