Macquarie CEO Shemara Wikramanayake Steps Down After 40 Years

Shemara Wikramanayake, CEO and managing director of Macquarie Group, will be leaving the firm in November with 1.47 million shares in the company, valued at approximately $373 million.

Shemara is the first female boss of an investment bank worth AUD70 billion under whose stewardship Macquarie's share price rose by about 120% and total shareholder return rose by 200%.

During her exceptional 40 years with Macquarie, Shemara has established herself as a female leader championing positive change who is committed and confident about the future of the company. Notably, she has never sold any shares in Macquarie stock that have been allotted to her as a result of executive remuneration. This is reflective of the confidence she has in Macquarie, particularly in its ability to create value in the long-run.

Key Highlights:

• Macquarie CEO Shemara Wikramanayake retires after delivering 200% shareholder returns
• Shemara exits with a $373M stake after 40 years at Macquarie
• Greg Ward succeeds Shemara as Macquarie faces governance challenges

She is widely known as a consistent and dependable leader who was able to steer Macquarie through challenging economic times and navigated volatile markets. Also, she did not shy away from making revisions to large-scale decisions when necessary, such as the sale of the Waddell & Reed asset management company to Nomura, which was a part of a much larger $1.8 billion deal made after purchasing it for $1.6 billion. Moreover, under her inclusive leadership, Macquarie significantly grew its commodity trading operation.

During her eight years as CEO, Shemara had provided consistent growth and momentum to the firm, according to chairman Glenn Stevens. “She’s navigated us through some very difficult times with pandemics, various other geopolitical events, and she’s done that with incredible strength and grace, and with an unwavering commitment to the company and to its people and our resource and culture,” he said.

Shemara was born in the UK to a Sri Lankan doctor. At age 64, she has become one of Australia's most powerful corporate figures. She has been among the highest paid CEOs of Australia every year, earning an average of between A$24 million and A$30 million annually. Her pay has been largely reflective of the success of the company and the shareholder value it has created under her stewardship.

Shemara will be succeeded by Greg Ward, a 30-year-old banker at Macquarie who heads its banking division and was also company’s chief financial officer during the global financial crisis.

Even with Macquarie's impressive financial record, the bank has faced growing scrutiny for a number of compliance and governance problems experienced over the past years. Although none of these problems reached levels that would be regarded as an outright corporate disaster, their frequent nature has put pressure on the bank from both investors and regulatory bodies. It is due to the accumulation of these problems that the executive remuneration package at Macquarie was rejected by more than 25% of its shareholders last year. This decision reflects dissatisfaction of the stockholders with the leadership.