The Leadership Star

AFTERWORD

In November of 2019, after nearly five years as CEO of Westpac, I got fired.

One of our regulators, Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC), announced that they were launching proceedings against us in the Federal Court for alleged breaches of anti–money laundering laws. Although much of what was in the allegations related to errors that my team had identified and reported to AUSTRAC over a year earlier, there were new, deeply upsetting allegations that we had failed to adequately monitor payments to the Philippines, some of which may have been used to fund child exploitation.

In the immediate aftermath of AUSTRAC's announcement (I'd been given a heads‐up the night before that it was coming), I drove to the bank's financial crime operations centre in western Sydney. Standing in a common area, surrounded by several dozen shell‐shocked members of the team, I explained what I knew about what had happened and tried to answer their questions as best I could. I then met in a conference room with the team leaders, who took me through the details of what they'd been able to glean from AUSTRAC's specific claims. Though they were devastated by the news, they remained calm and professional and explained their processes and cited examples in sufficient detail that I was able to take our board through the facts as I understood them that evening.

Through the following weekend I chaired meetings with our senior executives as we worked through the new allegations ...