Ross McEwan

Ross McEwan
Born	1957-07-16July 16, 1957 (age 69) Hastings, New Zealand
Nationality	New Zealander
Education	Massey University
Occupation	Banker, businessman
Company	BHP
Title	Chairman of BHP
Spouse	Stephanie
Children	2

Ross Maxwell McEwan (born 16 July 1957) is a New Zealand banker and businessman. He has been chairman of the mining company BHP since March 2025.

McEwan spent more than a decade in senior banking roles in New Zealand and Australia before moving to the United Kingdom, where he was chief executive officer of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) from October 2013 to 2019. He was brought in to lead the bank's recovery after its 2008 government bailout, a turnaround that RBS chairman Howard Davies later described as "one of the biggest UK corporate turnarounds in history." He resigned from RBS in April 2019.

McEwan was appointed group chief executive officer and managing director of National Australia Bank (NAB) in July 2019, taking over a bank that had lost its previous chief executive and chairman in the aftermath of Australia's Royal Commission into misconduct in the banking, superannuation and financial services industry. He stepped down as NAB chief executive in April 2024 and was succeeded by Andrew Irvine.

McEwan has also held non-executive board roles at the defence technology company QinetiQ Group and the plumbing and bathroom products group Reece Limited, and joined the board of BHP in April 2024 before becoming its chairman less than a year later.

Early life and education

Ross Maxwell McEwan was born on 16 July 1957 in Hastings, in New Zealand's Hawke's Bay region. He studied business studies at Massey University in the 1970s, where he later said he had failed his accountancy exam twice, only passing it at his third attempt, and where he met his future wife playing basketball. He has since served on the Massey University Foundation board.

McEwan began his career in 1980 on a graduate scheme at Unilever in New Zealand, before moving to a personnel management role at Dunlop New Zealand in 1985. In 1986 he moved into financial services at National Mutual Life Association of Australasia, later renamed AXA New Zealand, where he spent ten years before becoming chief executive of the New Zealand business in 1996, a post he held until 2002. He then became managing director of the stockbroking firm First NZ Capital Securities; when the firm combined with First NZ Capital in December 2002, he became head of securities of the merged business.

Career

Commonwealth Bank of Australia, 2003 to 2012

McEwan joined Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) in 2003, initially at its New Zealand subsidiary ASB Bank, as group executive for retail banking services, a role he held for five years; he was also executive general manager with responsibility for the branch network, contact centres and third-party mortgage brokers, before becoming head of retail banking in 2007. During the 2008 global financial crisis he worked to rebuild customer confidence in the bank's retail arm through expanded mobile banking services, extended branch hours and easier access to loans. In 2011 McEwan was considered for the position of CBA group chief executive after the resignation of Ralph Norris but lost out to fellow New Zealander Ian Narev. He later told the Australian Financial Review of his reaction: "To me, it was: step away from it, go overseas, try some new things."

Head of retail banking at RBS, 2012 to 2013

McEwan joined RBS in August 2012 as chief executive of UK retail banking, a division then dealing with the fallout of regulatory fines totalling around £50 million and £390 million, having been recruited from Commonwealth Bank of Australia. He was reportedly given a £3.2 million share award to compensate for incentives forfeited when he left CBA. In his first year he launched a £700 million plan to improve RBS's branches and services and cut about 1,400 jobs, telling analysts: "Having come into this market... I've been quite surprised at how bad this industry is from a retail banking perspective. I'd even go as far as to say that there's not a good retail bank, and our job is to create that."

Chief executive officer of RBS, 2013 to 2019

Stephen Hester's departure as RBS group chief executive was announced on 12 June 2013, and the board's remuneration committee engaged the search firm MWM Consulting to run a global process that benchmarked internal candidates, including McEwan, against outside contenders. RBS chairman Philip Hampton had run an international search for Hester's replacement, but the field narrowed to internal candidates after external contender Mark McCombe of BlackRock withdrew, with RBS finance director Bruce van Saun seen as a possible alternative to McEwan. The committee concluded that McEwan was the strongest candidate, citing his banking experience and the leadership he had already shown as RBS's head of retail banking, and his appointment as group chief executive was announced on 2 August 2013. He formally took over from Hester on 1 October 2013, on a salary about 17 per cent lower than his predecessor's. He took charge of a bank that was around 80 per cent owned by the UK government following its 2008 bailout, with the share price at roughly £3.60 against a 2007 high of £21.51. RBS reported an attributable loss of £9.0 billion for 2013, and employed 118,600 people worldwide on a full-time equivalent basis as at 31 December 2013, the year McEwan took over. His strategy centred on refocusing RBS on its core United Kingdom and Irish retail and commercial banking franchise, including a sharp reduction in the bank's international footprint from around 30 countries to about 12. RBS had grown to operate in some 54 countries in total by the time McEwan took charge, and he concluded that despite this global spread, the great majority of the bank's profits were generated in the UK, a finding that underpinned his decision to simplify the group. As part of the restructuring, McEwan withheld bonuses from senior executives during years in which the bank announced losses, while continuing to honour bonus payments that had already been guaranteed to staff RBS needed to retain.

On 27 February 2014, announcing a strategic overhaul alongside a pre-tax loss for 2013 that press reports put at £8.2 billion to £9 billion, McEwan told reporters: "Let me spell it out very clearly: the days when RBS sought to be the biggest bank in the world, those days are well and truly over. Our ambition is to be a bank for UK customers." He pledged to make the bank "smaller, simpler and smarter," cutting it from seven divisions to three and targeting the sale of shares in the US subsidiary Citizens Bank. RBS's full-time equivalent staff numbers were set to fall by almost two-thirds from a pre-crisis peak of 225,000, and its balance sheet, which had reached £2.4 trillion, was set to more than halve. The following week, McEwan told the Daily Telegraph that "free" current account banking for customers in credit could not continue indefinitely and that paid-for accounts would be "addressed in the market place." In February 2015, RBS said McEwan would forgo a share award worth £1 million, saying in a statement that he did not want the allowance "to be a distraction from the task of building a great bank"; his total pay for 2015 was still expected to exceed £2.7 million. By early 2015, investors who had been sceptical of McEwan's plan to cut £1 billion from the bank's then £18 billion cost base within a year had been proved wrong, he told the Financial Times.

RBS's own annual report on Form 20-F, filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, records that the bank's Common Equity Tier 1 capital ratio, a core measure of financial strength, rose from 8.6 per cent at the end of 2013, the year McEwan took charge, to 16.2 per cent at the end of 2018. Over the same period the bank reduced its operating costs by more than £4 billion. As part of the reshaping of the group under ring-fencing legislation that separated essential banking services from investment banking, RBS transferred 4.5 million customers between legal entities during 2018 and met the regulatory deadline of 1 January 2019 for ring-fence compliance. As at 31 December 2018, RBS employed 67,000 people on a full-time equivalent basis, including temporary workers.

By 2018, RBS reported a pre-tax operating profit of £3.4 billion and an attributable profit of £1.6 billion, its first annual profit in nine years, and resumed paying a dividend to shareholders in February 2019, the bank's first dividend payment in around a decade. The bank paid an interim ordinary dividend of 2 pence per share at its 2018 results, and proposed a final ordinary dividend of 3.5 pence per share plus a special dividend of 7.5 pence per share, together returning more than £1.6 billion to shareholders for the 2018 financial year, including around £1 billion to the UK taxpayer as RBS's majority shareholder. The government's stake in the bank had been reduced to about 62.3 per cent by early 2019, after HM Treasury sold 925 million shares in June 2018 for proceeds of £2.5 billion; in its November 2018 Autumn Budget, the UK government said it intended to sell all of its remaining RBS shares by 2024.

Resignation from RBS, 2019

McEwan announced his resignation as RBS chief executive on the morning of 25 April 2019, ahead of the bank's annual general meeting and first-quarter results, saying: "It is never easy to leave somewhere like RBS. However with much of the restructuring done and the bank on a strong and profitable footing, I have delivered the strategy that I set out in 2013 and now feels like the right time for me to step aside and for a new CEO to lead the bank." He agreed to serve a twelve-month notice period to allow time for a successor to be recruited. RBS chairman Howard Davies credited McEwan with "successful execution of the strategy to refocus the bank back on its core markets here in the UK and Ireland," calling it "one of the biggest UK corporate turnarounds in history." By the time of his resignation, the bank, still 62 per cent state-owned, had closed hundreds of branches during his tenure while more than doubling its profit to £1.62 billion the previous year. RBS shares fell around one per cent on the day the resignation was announced.

Group chief executive officer of National Australia Bank, 2019 to 2024

NAB announced McEwan's appointment as group chief executive officer and managing director on 19 July 2019, with a pay packet reported at the time as worth up to $9.5 million Australian dollars a year. He was recruited as an outside "turnaround specialist" following the departure of NAB's previous chief executive, Andrew Thorburn, and chairman, Ken Henry, in the wake of Australia's Hayne Royal Commission, which had found that a NAB subsidiary had charged fees to customers for services that were not provided. On taking the role McEwan said of the bank: "There are some things that need repairing... I find strength in those sorts of challenges." He joined NAB in December 2019.

Over his four and a half years in the role, McEwan focused heavily on rebuilding staff engagement and the bank's culture following the Royal Commission, work that continued through the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. He also served as chair of the Australian Banking Association on NAB's behalf from December 2023. NAB announced on 7 February 2024 that McEwan would retire from executive roles and be succeeded by Andrew Irvine, effective 2 April 2024. NAB chair Philip Chronican said of McEwan's tenure: "Ross has been exactly the CEO we needed. He came in at a critical time with significant international experience and expertise... He reminded us of the value of getting the basics right, simplification and exceeding customer expectations." McEwan said he was "confident to be leaving the bank's customers in good hands," adding: "I have enjoyed the past four-plus years as CEO and the way in which NAB has improved its performance, standing, trust and reputation."

Non-executive director and chairman of BHP, 2024 to present

McEwan was appointed an independent non-executive director of BHP with effect from 4 April 2024. On 12 February 2025, BHP announced that its board had elected McEwan to succeed Ken MacKenzie as chairman, with effect from 31 March 2025, following a formal chair succession process led by BHP's senior independent director, Gary Goldberg. In BHP's announcement, McEwan said: "It is an honour and privilege to succeed Ken MacKenzie as Chair of BHP... As incoming Chair, I am committed to generating long-term value for all our shareholders and will work tirelessly with the Board and management to achieve this." MacKenzie, who had chaired BHP since September 2017, said of the succession: "Ross is an excellent choice as leader of the Board, and I wish him every success in the role."

Leadership and management style

McEwan has described his approach to leading troubled organisations as one of "clarity and consistency," arguing that in a crisis a leader should "start with the basics" by being clear about what business the company is actually in. He has said of leadership programmes: "There's one leadership program: consistency." He has emphasised honesty with staff and investors during difficult periods, saying: "If you're in a bind, tell people. It's honesty and openness that people look for." A top-20 RBS shareholder described his style to the Financial Times in 2015: "He's got this ability to not let people off the hook, but not to be brutal about it. He is quick and decisive and his judgment is very good at putting the right people in charge."

At both RBS and NAB, McEwan worked from simplified, one-page strategy documents setting out an organisation's purpose, target customers, points of competitive difference, areas for growth, operating approach and measures of success, which he had published in quarterly investor reports as a way of demonstrating consistency of strategy over time. As a board director, he has argued that boards should challenge management "assertively yet constructively" while also providing genuine support in difficult periods, and should ensure all voices around the table are heard in a disciplined way. He has also voiced concern that escalating environmental, social and governance and other regulatory reporting requirements risk adding complexity without commensurate benefit to shareholders, and has questioned whether the compliance burden facing public companies discourages businesses from listing on public markets. He has been critical more broadly of parts of the financial services industry becoming self-serving rather than staying focused on customers, and has said that organisations tend to fail when their senior leadership teams lose sight of their underlying purpose.

Major deals and strategic decisions

At RBS, McEwan's central strategic decision was to shrink the bank's international operations and concentrate on its UK and Irish retail and commercial banking business, reducing the bank's presence in dozens of countries to around a dozen. This shift accompanied the restructuring that returned RBS to profitability in 2018. Early in his tenure, RBS set out a capital plan built around four workstreams grouped under a Capital Resolution Group: running down around £29 billion of high-risk, capital-intensive assets through a dedicated unit, and divesting the US subsidiary Citizens Financial Group and the Williams and Glyn business, both through planned stock market flotations, alongside optimising the bank's shipping finance business.

In August 2018, RBS reached a final settlement of £3.6 billion with the US Department of Justice over its issuance and underwriting of US residential mortgage-backed securities between 2005 and 2007, before the financial crisis; the bank described the settlement as resolving its last major legacy legal issue. RBS also carried out a large-scale internal restructuring to comply with UK ring-fencing legislation, which required the separation of essential retail and commercial banking services from investment banking from 1 January 2019, placing the bulk of its UK and European banking business under an intermediate holding company, NatWest Holdings, while its investment bank, NatWest Markets, and its international arm, RBS International, were kept outside the ring-fence as separate subsidiaries.

Financial and market performance

When McEwan became RBS chief executive in October 2013, the bank's shares traded at around £3.60, far below the £21.51 high they had reached before the 2008 financial crisis, and the bank reported an attributable loss of £9.0 billion for that year. RBS's own SEC filings show the bank's Common Equity Tier 1 capital ratio improved from 8.6 per cent at the end of 2013 to 16.2 per cent at the end of 2018, and that operating costs were cut by more than £4 billion over that period. The bank's full-time equivalent headcount fell from 118,600 worldwide at the end of 2013 to 67,000 at the end of 2018. By 2018, RBS reported a pre-tax operating profit of £3.4 billion and a bottom-line attributable profit of £1.6 billion, its first annual profit in nine years, and in February 2019 it resumed dividend payments to shareholders for the first time in roughly a decade, paying an interim dividend of 2 pence per share followed by a proposed final dividend of 3.5 pence per share and a special dividend of 7.5 pence per share. The UK government's shareholding, built up through the 2008 bailout, had been reduced to about 62.3 per cent by early 2019 after a further disposal of shares in June 2018 raised £2.5 billion. Following the announcement of McEwan's resignation in April 2019, RBS shares fell around one per cent to 254p.

Board memberships and outside roles

As of 2025, McEwan is chairman of BHP, having joined its board as an independent non-executive director in April 2024. He is also a non-executive director of the UK defence technology company QinetiQ Group and lead independent director of the Australian plumbing and bathroom products distributor Reece Limited. He sits on the foundation board of his alma mater, Massey University, and has been involved with Ruminant Biotech Corp, a New Zealand agricultural technology company working on reducing livestock methane emissions. While at NAB he also chaired the Australian Banking Association on the bank's behalf from December 2023 until his retirement, after NAB took on the industry body's two-year chair bank responsibilities.

Controversies

As head of retail banking at RBS from 2012, McEwan joined a division that was dealing with the consequences of regulatory fines totalling around £50 million and £390 million imposed on the bank.

During McEwan's time as chief executive, RBS remained engaged in redress and complaints work relating to its former Global Restructuring Group (GRG), a unit that had managed relationships with small and medium-sized business customers in financial difficulty between 2008 and 2013, before McEwan became chief executive. Following an independent Skilled Person review commissioned by the Financial Conduct Authority into RBS's treatment of these customers, the reviewer delivered a final report to the FCA in September 2016 and the FCA published an update that November; the Treasury Committee later published the FCA's report in full, after the regulator had proposed releasing only a redacted version, and described the details it uncovered as "disgraceful." In response, RBS put in place a redress process comprising an automatic refund of certain complex fees and a new complaints process overseen by an independent third party; the UK complaints process closed to new complaints on 22 October 2018, and the equivalent process in the Republic of Ireland closed on 31 December 2018 for most complainants. RBS took an additional £50 million provision in the fourth quarter of 2018 to cover a greater than predicted volume of complaints in the final weeks before the process closed, and the bank said it expected to remain engaged in managing GRG-related complaints until at least the end of 2020. McEwan himself described the GRG allegations to the Financial Times in 2015 as "probably the only area that I've got quite emotional about in my time here," and defended the unit's record, arguing it had been impossible to cope with an eightfold rise in the number of struggling businesses referred to it after the financial crisis.

In September 2018, McEwan was accused by the House of Commons Treasury Committee of withholding information from MPs about GRG. The dispute arose after McEwan told the committee in January 2018 that he was unaware of any suspected criminal activity at the bank, in response to a question from Alister Jack MP; it later emerged that a GRG employee was the subject of a criminal investigation by Police Scotland. McEwan wrote to the committee's chair, Nicky Morgan, saying the case "did not relate" to the FCA's investigation that was the subject of the hearing, and that RBS "would entirely reject the suggestion that the committee may have been in any way misled by the evidence that I gave." Morgan described his explanation as "unconvincing," writing that McEwan's response "fell short" of the standard of clarity and openness the committee expected, and that the committee was "concerned by the pattern of defensiveness, and a failure to acknowledge mistakes, demonstrated by RBS throughout its handling of the GRG affair"; she said McEwan's letter "casts doubt on his assurances that RBS' culture has changed fundamentally since he took up his position five years ago." The committee said it might recall McEwan to give further oral evidence and would "expect him to tell the whole truth, not an edited version to suit him"; McEwan responded that he was "disappointed" by Morgan's comments and had "replied to the committee's questions in good faith."

In August 2018, RBS reached a £3.6 billion final settlement with the US Department of Justice over its issuance and underwriting of US residential mortgage-backed securities in the period 2005 to 2007, conduct that predated McEwan's appointment as chief executive; RBS's own annual report described the size of the settlement as "a stark reminder of how in the past this bank failed to put the interests of customers first."

McEwan's own pay drew criticism from shareholder advisory groups in his final year at RBS. Ahead of his resignation, the shareholder advisory group Pirc described his £3.6 million pay package as "excessive," while the shareholder rights group ShareSoc criticised his pension contributions, then 35 per cent of salary against 10 per cent for other employees, as "nonsense."

As chief executive of National Australia Bank from 2019, McEwan took charge of a bank that Australia's Hayne Royal Commission had found had, through a subsidiary, charged around AU$100 million in fees to customers for services that were not provided; the misconduct predated his appointment and had already led to the departure of NAB's previous chief executive and chairman.

Personal life

McEwan is married to a woman named Stephanie, whom he met while they were both students at Massey University playing basketball; she graduated with honours in food technology. The couple have two adult daughters, one of whom has owned a cafe in London, and, as of the mid-2020s, grandchildren. McEwan and his wife own a cattle farm near Auckland, New Zealand, which he has said they bought as an alternative to spending a similar amount on a small city flat, and which he visits twice a year. His interests outside work have included cycling, water skiing and supporting New Zealand rugby.

Recognition

McEwan was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2020 New Year Honours, announced in late December 2019, for services to the financial sector.

See also

• BHP
• National Australia Bank
• NatWest Group
• Commonwealth Bank of Australia
• Stephen Hester
• Andrew Irvine