(Bloomberg) -- Bettina Orlopp has been waiting in the wings for more than four years. With Commerzbank AG scrambling to fend off an unwelcome suitor, her rise to the top has taken a sudden and dramatic twist.
The lender’s supervisory board on Tuesday appointed Orlopp as the next chief executive officer, the first woman ever in that role. The announcement came barely two weeks after CEO Manfred Knof said he wouldn’t seek a new term when his current one runs out at the end of next year.
That timeline was thrown into disarray within hours of being announced as Italian rival UniCredit SpA took a major stake in the German lender. Orlopp, Commerzbank’s chief financial officer, now finds herself leading the 154-year-old company through one of its biggest challenges, with its future as an independent firm at stake.
“While we have a strategy that is effective, significant tasks lie ahead,” Orlopp said in the press release announcing her new role. “We will navigate through the challenges ahead of us successfully.”
Orlopp will take over after Knof leaves on Sept. 30, Commerzbank said in a separate statement on Wednesday.
Her first task will be to defend Commerzbank against UniCredit and its CEO, Andrea Orcel, who has rapidly built a major stake in the competitor, effectively becoming the largest shareholder ahead of the German government. A full takeover is an option, he has said.
While Orcel has praised Commerzbank’s leadership, he has also said that its strategy should be improved and announced he’ll present ideas to management.
Orlopp has pushed back, sending a clear signal to Orcel she won’t let Commerzbank be taken over without a fight. She’s “not excited” by the prospect of the lender becoming a part of UniCredit, she said last week.
“Issues like this cause unrest,” she said, referring to the UniCredit move. “We don’t need them because we are on an excellent path.”
That path is now for her to chart. Her appointment happened during Commerzbank’s annual strategy meeting in a town outside Frankfurt, where its headquartered. While UniCredit’s approach and Orlopp’s new role likely dominated talks, management also need to devise a strategy that prepares Commerzbank for an era of falling interest rates, which is set to cut into revenue.
“With Orlopp as new CEO, the bank has an ideal line-up,” said Andreas Thomae, a fund manager at DekaBank, an investor in Commerzbank. “She knows the bank well, is assertive and helped devise the strategy.”
A former partner at McKinsey & Co., Orlopp has been preparing for the top role at Commerzbank since at least 2020, when Martin Zielke was forced out in a shareholder revolt. While she was a top internal contender at the time, the lender ultimately passed over her for Knof, an outsider hired from Deutsche Bank AG.
Loyal Soul
Orlopp never complained, at least not publicly. Instead, she steadily improved her reputation with stakeholders, effectively becoming the international face of Commerzbank by presenting quarterly results and investor updates. Headhunters kept raising her name whenever there was a high-profile role to fill in Germany’s financial industry.
Orlopp stuck with Commerzbank, patiently waiting for her turn. The lender’s supervisory board later promoted her to deputy CEO.
The 54-year-old earlier this month described herself as a “loyal soul” when asked about her ambitions just before Knof announced his decision to leave.
Orlopp started at Commerzbank in 2014 as an executive responsible for group development and strategy. Three years later she became the first woman on the bank’s management board, initially in charge of compliance, human resources and legal matters. She helped improve Commerzbank’s control systems and later spearheaded a cost-cutting program.
During her early days in the CFO role, she sometimes appeared a little unsteady during investor presentations. But she has since won praise from investors, customers and employees for her clear communication and management of the bank’s finances.
Knof will step aside from his role in a matter of weeks or even days, Bloomberg News reported. It will then be up to Orlopp, who wrote her dissertation on cash settlements for minority shareholders, to ensure Commerzbank can remain independent.
(Adds date of departure of current CEO in fifth paragraph.)
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