Frankfurt About three years ago, CEO Christian Sewing personally brought him to Deutsche Bank. HR manager Michael Ilgner is now resigning from his post. “After a very enriching three and a half years, I have decided to leave the bank and to hand over my responsibilities by the end of July,” said Ilgner in an internal email to his employees, which was available to the Handelsblatt.
Ilgner “brought a valuable external perspective to our human resources strategy,” praised Sewing and organizational director Rebecca Short of the outgoing manager. Ilgner had further developed the personnel strategy and was an important partner of the board, the bank officially announced in the evening.
According to information from the Handelsblatt, the former head of Deutsche Sporthilfe has been under considerable internal pressure for several months. Insiders cite three different factors for the HR manager’s end: dissatisfaction with Ilgner’s performance as HR manager, an irregular securities transaction by the manager and his clipped career prospects since the recent board restructuring.
Ilgner’s farewell is also a setback for CEO Christian Sewing. He had steered Ilgner from Deutsche Sporthilfe to Deutsche Bank in 2020. Ilgner was considered a confidant of Sewing.
There was repeated criticism of his administration, especially from the union camp, according to financial circles. “He didn’t cut a good figure operationally,” says one critic. Among other things, he said he had done too little to counteract the poor staffing in the human resources department.
Violation of internal rules
In addition, Ilgner has weakened his position through securities transactions that violated the bank’s internal rules. “Legally, that wouldn’t have been enough for a breakup, but it wasn’t helpful either,” said an insider.
At the end of April it became known that Ilgner was threatened with sanctions for an illegal bond transaction. On April 18 of this year, a week before the publication of his employer’s quarterly figures, he bought bonds worth over 200,000 euros.
In doing so, the head of human resources had violated internal guidelines of the largest domestic financial institution. Deutsche Bank’s rules prohibit senior managers from trading in the institution’s securities in the eight weeks prior to the release of the figures. In financial circles it was said at the time that there was no evidence that Ilgner had acted maliciously.
>> Read here: Head of Human Resources at Deutsche Bank faces a fine after buying a bond
The question of who is the head of HR has gained in importance since the recent board reshuffle. With organization director Rebecca Short, a New Zealander has taken over the post of labor director on the board. The manager is hardly familiar with the pitfalls of German co-determination and German labor law. From the point of view of some critics, it is all the more important that the head of HR under her is beyond any doubt.
The reorganization of the board of directors had raised questions about Ilgner’s future at the bank anyway: it was originally intended that the manager would move up to the bank’s board of directors after a certain period of induction. According to reports, however, the banking supervisory authority had doubts about Ilgner’s qualifications as a board member, since he had no banking background.
Dull career opportunities
Ilgner’s career expectations at the bank have not been fulfilled either: With the recent restructuring of the Management Board, responsibility for personnel on the Management Board has now also migrated from Sewing to the new organizational director, Short. Ilgner’s way to the board was blocked for the foreseeable future anyway.
In his personal email, Ilgner went into the organizational changes that are causing the HR department to move into the organizational area. He sees this “as a suitable time to reorient myself externally and to transfer my previous tasks to new management for the next phase in the development of our human resources and real estate strategy,” he said.
It is unclear who follows Ilgner. CEO Sewing and organization director Short announced a “comprehensive selection process with internal and external candidates” for Ilgner’s successor.
Setback for Christian Sewing
Ilgner’s unlucky career at Deutsche Bank is also uncomfortable for CEO Christian Sewing – and not just because the jump to the board department was unsuccessful. Above all, the securities business and how the bank deals with it is delicate for Sewing.
Because Ilgner’s securities deal is not the first case in which a high-ranking manager with a good connection to Sewing has violated internal rules. In the past, the Institute did not always draw prompt conclusions from this.
The institute is said to have let the head of the asset manager subsidiary DWS, Asoka Wöhrmann, who was dismissed last year, go through several strange processes without consequences. For example, the purchase of a Porsche that a business partner of the bank had arranged. Or the use of private e-mails in a professional context. The lax handling of these incidents is said to have at least contributed to the supposedly voluntary farewell to Vice-Chairman Karl von Rohr.
This is also a setback for Christian Sewing.
(Photo: dpa)
Last year, the bank – like other financial institutions – had to pay a fine in the hundreds of millions because employees had exchanged business matters illegally via messenger apps. The board members of the bank voluntarily waived EUR 75,000 each of their variable remuneration last year because of these misconduct. WhatsApp is said to have been used illegally by very high-ranking managers at the bank, such as DWS.
In the case of Ilgner, the institute had announced that Deutsche Bank had clear rules and controls for its employees’ personal securities transactions, it said. “Possible violations of these rules are consistently checked and, if necessary, sanctioned. Irrespective of hierarchies, we take these principles very seriously, also in this case.”
Since supervisory board chairman Alex Wynaendts took office last May, violations of regulations have been sanctioned more severely or at least more publicly. For example, the supervisory board reduced a certain bonus component for all board members by five percent for the past year because, from its point of view, the institute does not make up for the regulatory deficits resolved quickly enough.
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