RBS ‘chairman of the bored’ quits after social media gaffes

A senior investment banker's Snapchats to his daughter featuring captions such as “Not a fan of board meetings xx” left him facing criticism

Rory Cullinan became executive chairman of RBS’s corporate and institutional bank at the end of February (AFP/Getty)

A senior investment banker with Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), who hit the headlines this month when his social media messages to his daughter revealed that he was “bored” at work, is leaving just weeks after taking up a new position.

Rory Cullinan became executive chairman of RBS’s corporate and institutional bank at the end of February but will leave at the end of April after what insiders called “a divergence of views over the implementation of a new strategy”.

He had been with the bank – which is four-fifths owned by taxpayers – for six years and most recently was in charge of getting rid of “non-core” activities, such as the initial public offering last September of its US subsidiary Citizens Bank, which raised $3bn for RBS. But his use of the photo-sharing app Snapchat to send images to his daughter featuring captions such as: “Not a fan of board meetings xx”, “Boring meeting xx” and “Another friggin meeting”, left him facing criticism for not taking his job seriously when they were published in The Sun this month.

Yesterday, Mr Cullinan said: “I am pleased and proud to have played a significant part in restoring RBS to a safe and sound agenda over the past six years.”

The RBS chief executive, Ross McEwan, thanked Mr Cullinan for his “very significant contribution to the rebuild of RBS”.

Chris Marks, the corporate and institutional banking chief, and Mark Bailie, boss of RBS’s Capital Resolution business, will join the bank’s executive committee as joint CEOs of corporate and institutional banking, in Mr Cullinan’s place.