RBC yes­ter­day an­nounced that Suresh B Sookoo, CEO, RBC Caribbean Bank­ing, has de­cid­ed to re­tire, ef­fec­tive Oc­to­ber 31.Sookoo, a ca­reer banker for more than 35 years, has led RBC's Caribbean op­er­a­tions since 2008, when RBC ac­quired the RBTT Group, cre­at­ing one of the most ex­pan­sive bank­ing op­er­a­tions in the Caribbean, from The Ba­hamas in the North to Suri­name in the South.

Sookoo will con­tin­ue to sit on the board of RBC Fi­nan­cial (Caribbean) Ltd, the hold­ing com­pa­ny for RBC's Caribbean busi­ness, and has agreed to re­main avail­able as an ad­vi­sor to its lead­er­ship team.With Sookoo's re­tire­ment, Kirk Dudtschak, cur­rent­ly pres­i­dent, Caribbean Bank­ing, will as­sume the role of ex­ec­u­tive vice-pres­i­dent and Head, Caribbean Bank­ing.

Dudtschak joined RBC in 1986 and has held a va­ri­ety of se­nior and ex­ec­u­tive roles since then. As pres­i­dent, Caribbean Bank­ing, he has worked along­side Sookoo over the last 18 months to strength­en the per­for­mance of the busi­ness and po­si­tion it for sus­tain­able growth. Pre­vi­ous­ly, Dudtschak held a va­ri­ety of se­nior po­si­tions with­in RBC's branch net­work and head of­fice, with ex­pe­ri­ence in strat­e­gy, hu­man re­sources, sales, op­er­a­tions and risk man­age­ment.

In his new role, he will be re­spon­si­ble for dri­ving the over­all strate­gic di­rec­tion and busi­ness per­for­mance of Caribbean Bank­ing, while al­so en­sur­ing close and ef­fec­tive col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the Caribbean busi­ness and the rest of RBC."Suresh is a trust­ed leader who ded­i­cat­ed his ca­reer to serv­ing our clients, de­vel­op­ing our em­ploy­ees and sup­port­ing our com­mu­ni­ties," said Jen­nifer To­ry, head of Per­son­al & Com­mer­cial Bank­ing, RBC.

"He has al­so con­tributed great­ly to the growth and de­vel­op­ment of the bank­ing sec­tor across the re­gion, es­pe­cial­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go. We will miss his ex­pe­ri­ence and ex­per­tise, and wish him all the best in his re­tire­ment."To­ry added: "Kirk is a proven, re­spect­ed and ex­pe­ri­enced ex­ec­u­tive with a deep knowl­edge of our busi­ness. He un­der­stands the Caribbean mar­kets and the needs of our clients in the re­gion, and I am con­fi­dent that he will dri­ve our busi­ness to­wards sus­tain­able, long-term suc­cess."

Sookoo and Dudtschak will con­tin­ue to work to­geth­er in the com­ing weeks to en­sure a smooth lead­er­ship tran­si­tion.

"As I pre­pare to re­tire, I'm con­fi­dent we have turned a cor­ner in our com­pa­ny," said Sookoo. "We now have strong re­gion­al and lo­cal lead­er­ship in place across all of our mar­kets to take this busi­ness for­ward, sup­port­ed by RBC's strength and risk man­age­ment dis­ci­pline. I have had a tremen­dous ex­pe­ri­ence with RBC and have worked with some of the best tal­ent in the in­dus­try. I look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to con­tribute to the suc­cess of the Caribbean in oth­er ca­pac­i­ties."

Dudtschak said: "This is a great priv­i­lege and ho­n­our for me. We have a great and di­verse lead­er­ship team in place sup­port­ed by a ded­i­cat­ed, loy­al and com­mit­ted work­force who strives to de­liv­er on our clients' ex­pec­ta­tions every day.""Suresh has been a won­der­ful col­league," he con­tin­ued, "and I want to thank him for all the work he's done to get us to where we are, and wish him all the best in the next phase of his jour­ney."