Delivering products that help companies to achieve their targets and increase profits is the driving aspiration behind Kelly Bayer Rosmarin in her role as head of institutional banking and markets at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
Bayer Rosmarin’s team of about 1,500 staff across nine countries generates nearly 15% of CBA’s group profits. They provide services to large corporate, government, and institutional clients covering debt capital markets, loan syndication, project and structured finance, foreign exchange, commodity and interest rate products, and transactional banking.
Last financial year the division reported revenues of A$2.7 billion and an after-tax profit of A$1.3billion, which was a 5% increase on the previous year. The division also achieved a 9% increase in average lending balances and a 9% boost in average deposit balances, clocking up 41 new transaction banking mandates in 2014.
Big clients include Telstra, Woolworths, Origin Energy, Transurban, Queensland Motorways, and the Scentre Group. “I like to see people in business fulfil their potential and use our products and services to make their businesses more successful,” said the veteran banker.
Bayer Rosmarin took on her current role in January 2014 after heading corporate banking solutions at CBA. She joined the bank in 2004. Prior to that she was a management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group and also spent time in Silicon Valley working for start-ups and established software companies. She is a Master of Science graduate from Stanford University.
“I inherited a healthy business with a strong track record in customer satisfaction but since then we have focused heavily on using technology to give clients more granular and insightful information about how their businesses operate,” Bayer Rosmarin said.
Her team’s achievements in the past 12 months include being selected by the Queensland state government to provide whole of government banking services for the next five years; being mandated lead arranger and swap bank on Newcastle Port’s A$875 million syndicated facilities; and being the only domestic lead arranger for the financing of the A$2.1 billion Sydney Light Rail Project.
FinanceAsia’s 2015 honour roll of the most influential women across the Asia Pacific region spans investment and commercial bankers.
Published as a feature in the July / August 2015 print edition of FinanceAsia, the series also presents leading women in new areas of finance such as fintech where Asian companies are among the fastest-growing in the world.
We also canvassed corporate financiers for exceptional women working in deal advisory including lawyers and accountants. In the process of researching the series, we found evidence of progress in creating more diverse workplaces in the region.
