Challenger bank TSB unveils raft of leadership appointments as CYBG’s Debbie Crosbie begins her reign

Challenger bank TSB has further bolstered its leadership team following the arrival of new chief executive Debbie Crosbie.

The former CYBG chief operating officer took charge earlier this month, replacing Paul Pester who stepped down last year in the aftermath of a major IT meltdown.

Read more: TSB launches fraud guarantee for customers after last year's IT crisis

TSB has also unveiled a further three new executives, including Robin Bulloch – currently managing director of Lloyds Community Banking – who will take up the role of customer banking director later this year.

The bank has also hired Suresh Viswanathan, former chief operating officer of Barclays UK, as COO, and Liz Ashford from Aviva Investors as HR director.

The shake-up comes up just over a year after IT chaos prevented 1.9m TSB customers from accessing their accounts for a number of weeks – the bank also lost around 80,000 customers throughout 2018.

Aside from reputational damage, the outage also led to TSB posting annual losses of £105m, the move away from its IT system, including customer compensation and fraud losses, costing £330m.

The bank returned to profit in the first quarter and Spanish owners Sabadell said all complaints related to the IT crisis had now been resolved.

Crosbie said: “These three appointments are a significant step forward in the next chapter for TSB.

Read more: TSB needs three-year turnaround before potential sale, Sabadell says

“They will help to put a much clearer focus on our customers and on improving the TSB experience, as we accelerate our plans to transform and improve TSB.”

Viswanathan, who will join the bank in August, said: “With a strong customer base, committed partners, a new technology platform, and reach across the whole country, we have a huge opportunity to improve the speed, ease and quality of service for millions of TSB customers.”