299 bloor call control.
Senior Member
Good news, the CEO is being promoted from within Manulife ranks...
Good to hear that they expected the CEO to move to Toronto.
Manulife names chief investment officer as CEO
JOHN PARTRIDGE Globe and Mail Update
September 8, 2008 at 3:07 PM EDT
Manulife Financial Corp. has chosen its chief investment officer Donald Guloien to succeed Dominic D'Alessandro as president and chief executive officer when he steps down next May.
The Toronto financial services company also said Monday that John DesPrez III will add the newly created post of chief operating officer to his current job as president and CEO of its John Hancock Financial Services unit in the United States, also effective next May.
Mr. Guloien has been with Manulife for 28 years, and as well as being its CIO is chairman and CEO of its MFC Global Investment Management division.
Mr. D'Alessandro is 61, while Mr. Guloien and Mr. DesPrez are both 51.
Manulife chairman Arthur Sawchuk said in a news release that Mr. Guloien is “ideally suited” to succeed Mr. D'Alessandro, who has headed the company since 1994, and guided it to a position as the second-largest life insurer in North America and fifth largest in the world.
Manulife has decided to add a chief operating officer to the management hierarchy because the company has “grown to the size and complexity” where such a move “makes sense,” Mr. Sawchuk said.
This, he added, will enable to new CEO to concentrate on strategy, financial management and investment activities.
Analysts have been betting since Mr. D'Alessandro announced May 8 that he planned to retire next year that either Mr. Guloien or Mr. DesPrez would succeed him as CEO.
“They divided the kingdom,” analyst Tom Mackinnon at Scotia Capital in Toronto said Monday.
He also said he thinks Mr. Guloein's selection is “the right move.”
His knowledge of Manulife's far-flung operations is “a lot more broad-based,” Mr. Mackinnon added, and there also were questions about how keen Mr. DesPrez would be to move to Toronto from Boston.
Good to hear that they expected the CEO to move to Toronto.