One of Malaysia's largest financial institutions, CIMB Group, is entering a new era as it announced on July 3 a leadership transition plan which will take effect on September 1 2014.

Tan Sri Md Nor Yusof, chairman of CIMB Group, will retire from the board of directors and join the group's international advisory panel. Dato' Sri Nazir Razak will succeed Yusof as chairman and will relinquish his position as group CEO.

The group is also taking this opportunity to reconfigure its leadership structure. In addition to being chairman of CIMB Group, Nazir will also chair an executive committee of the board - to be established - that will focus on key strategic matters and enhance the board's oversight functions.

A new group CEO will be announced once regulatory approvals have been obtained. Nazir will also continue to serve as president commissioner of Bank CIMB Niaga and deputy chairman of CIMB Bank and be nominated chairman of CIMB Investment Bank with effect from September 1 2014.

Yusof, who Nazir considered as his mentor, is described as a pioneer of the modern CIMB Group having served as CEO of Bank of Commerce, one of the key banks that comprise CIMB Group today, from 1986 to 2000 and chairman of CIMB Group since July 2006.

On his re-designation, Nazir said "it is time for someone with fresh thinking and energy to lead the management team of CIMB Group", having served as group CEO for 15 years. "CIMB has grown tremendously in scale and breadth in the last few years and it is timely that we institutionalize a more progressive balance between the roles of the board and management going forward. With that and in my new role as chairman, I will be actively supporting the management team, especially in strategic matters," Nazir added.

Under his watch, Nazir built CIMB Investment Bank from a Malaysian-centric into a regional investment bank as it expanded its footprint in Asia-Pacific following its acquisition of the investment banking business of the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2012.

Undoubtedly, the acquisition has taken CIMB into the next level as the deal covered the cash equities businesses in Australia, China, Hong Kong, India and Taiwan, and included the cash equities sales desk in the UK and the US.

In March 2013, it commenced investment banking and brokerages businesses in South Korea after successfully obtaining an equities brokerage license from the Financial Services Commission. This was followed in April by the establishment of investment banking and brokerage businesses in Mumbai, with a 60-strong team that also offers research to both domestic and international clients.

Then in July, CIMB completed the expansion of its investment banking platform in the region with the launch of its investment banking and brokerage businesses in Taiwan. It closed its first major Taiwan deal in September, acting as a joint bookrunner in the US$400 million convertible bond for Advanced Semiconductor Engineering.