Heartland executives get six of 10 top jobs at proposed TSB Heartland Bank, with no place for TSB's CEO or CFO
Six of the 10 executives proposed to run TSB Heartland Bank come from Heartland. TSB's chief executive and chief financial officer are not among them.
Heartland Group Holdings has named the team that would report to Leanne Lazarus, now chief executive of Heartland Bank and CEO designate of the merged lender, interest.co.nz reported. Five of her current Heartland executives would join her, along with four people from TSB's leadership team.
Heartland's people hold the money and risk jobs. Kerry Conway, Heartland Bank's CFO, would be CFO. Andy Wood, its chief risk officer and a former head of supervision at the Reserve Bank, would keep the risk role. Rebecca Thomas would move from chief digital and transformation officer to chief technology, digital and data officer. Lana West would stay chief people and culture officer. Peter Griffin, now chief commercial officer, would become specialist chief customer officer.
From TSB, Larissa Vaughan, general manager of regulatory affairs and general counsel, would be chief legal officer. Penny Burgess, general manager of customer delivery, would be chief customer officer for retail banking. Nick Herbert, general manager for product and marketing, would be chief product and proposition officer. Molly Auva'a-O'Brien, TSB's general manager for operational excellence, is also on the team, though her new title was not reported.
Left out from TSB are chief executive Kerry Boielle, CFO Matt Judge, chief digital officer Roxanne Salton, chief risk officer Graeme Scrivener and Steven Venables, general manager of people and culture.
Alistair Scott, chief auto and asset finance officer, is the only one of Heartland Bank's current executives left without a role. Chief legal officer Phoebe Gibbons would move to a new group chief legal officer job after completion.
Heartland Group Holdings chief executive Andrew Dixson said the team would bring together "complementary experience and perspectives" from both banks, interest.co.nz reported.
TSB was more guarded. A spokeswoman told interest.co.nz it was "too early to speculate about future roles given the merger remains a proposal subject to the required approvals." She said the two banks "continue to operate as separate businesses" until the merger is approved and completed, and that future roles and transition arrangements "are still being shaped and will be shared if the merger is confirmed."
Lazarus said transition arrangements would be "confirmed as and when merger implementation progresses toward completion."
An establishment panel endorsed the team and would become the merged bank's board. It has eight members, and two of them come from TSB: its chairman, Mark Darrow, and director Mike Schubert. The rest are Heartland Bank chairman Bruce Irvine, Dixson, John Harvey, Kate Mitchell, former BNZ executive Shelley Ruha and Simon Tyler.
None of it is settled. Every appointment needs the Reserve Bank not to object, and Heartland is still waiting for the central bank to approve the takeover itself. Heartland hopes to complete in December.
Deloitte's draft report on TSB's capital and liquidity reporting is due at the end of October, interest.co.nz reported, and it could still sink the deal. The Reserve Bank used a Section 95 notice to require TSB to commission the independent review, after TSB found and reported the problems itself, Mortgage Professional Adviser reported. TSB said an internal review found it had classed some funding as non-market when it should have been market funding. That made TSB look less reliant on market funding than it was, and meant it had been in breach of a condition of its banking registration since 2010, though it says its liquidity ratios stayed above regulatory minimums throughout. It had also calculated capital using loan-to-value ratios set when loans were written, rather than updating them each reporting period. TSB says it had fixed the capital issues as at 30 September 2025.
The final report goes to the Reserve Bank in November, according to interest.co.nz. Heartland has already told shareholders that if the review's results are "materially different to what is known today", the deal may not complete, even though they have approved it. At the 30 September special meeting, 94.80% of votes on the main merger resolution were in favour.
TSB's regulatory record has other marks on it. The Financial Markets Authority formally warned the bank after it overcharged fees on 7,309 business cheque accounts between 2017 and 2023, Mortgage Professional Adviser reported. TSB has repaid $1.73 million.
Heartland would pay the Toi Foundation, TSB's owner, with $250 million in new Heartland shares, $56 million of subordinated debt issued by Heartland Bank and a $264 million loan from the foundation itself. TSB would also pay Toi a $50 million cash dividend before completion. The merged lender would hold about $15 billion of New Zealand assets. Toi would end up owning 17.5% of Heartland Group Holdings, interest.co.nz reported. The published reports carry no comment from the foundation on the leadership team.