KEITH Skeoch is stepping down as chief executive of Standard Life Aberdeen (SLA), the Scottish financial services heavyweight announced this morning.
Mr Skeoch joins Martin Gilbert in exiting the Edinburgh-based investment giant after the pair led the £11 billion merger of Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management in 2017.
The duo, who initially led SLA as co-chief executives, went on to sell the SLA life assurance business to Phoenix Group for £3 billion in 2018. Mr Gilbert stepped down as co-chief executive in March of last year, leaving Mr Skeoch in sole charge, and went on to serve as vice-chairman before announcing he would not be seeking re-election at SLA’s annual meeting this year.
Mr Skeoch will be replaced by former Citigate executive Stephen Bird, who will join SLA as chief executive designate to begin the handover tomorrow.
READ MORE: Martin Gilbert: I was 'lucky to survive' splits crisis
Mr Skeoch said: “It has been a real privilege to serve on the board for the last 14 years and in particular the last five as chief executive. I know Stephen well and will leave my current role knowing the company is in great hands. He will have my full support during transition, as he will have on an ongoing basis from the great team which has supported me."
SLA chairman Sir Douglas Flint said: “I want to recognise Keith's great leadership over the past five years as both our chief executive and for a period as co-chief executive. He guided the company through its transformation arising from the merger with Aberdeen Asset Management and the deal with Phoenix Group amidst significant change in our industry.
“He has been a decisive and empathetic leader during the Covid-19 crisis and has supported the transition to new leadership selflessly, recognising that the post-Covid world brings a wide range of fresh longer-term opportunities and challenges that are best taken forward with leadership succession settled.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article