After weeks of rumors, Deutsche Bank on Sunday ousted CEO John Cryan and promoted President Christian Sewing to replace him.
The German bank last month reported a 2017 net loss of 735 million euros (nearly $900 million), its third straight year of losses since Cryan became CEO in mid-2015.
Deutsche Bank has been cutting operations globally but during a visit to its Jacksonville in 2016, Cryan promised to continue growing that office. Deutsche Bank had about 1,800 Jacksonville employees at the time and Cryan said he envisioned it growing to 2,800.
In a message to employees two weeks ago, Cryan said he wasn’t leaving despite rumors of his ouster. “I just wanted to reaffirm that I am absolutely committed to serving our bank and to continuing down the path on which we started some three years ago,” the message said.
“There is a lot of talk about our performance in and outside the bank. We all know that we have a lot of work to do: our programs are ambitious, but the financial results have so far not been what all of us would want them to be,” he said. “We need to demonstrate more visibly the excellent progress we are making in so many areas, so that doubts about our bank fade away over time. We have strong momentum right now, so let’s not allow ourselves to be thrown off course.”