Mac Millington (52), customer operations director at Abbey National is to take early retirement after a 28-year career at the UK bank.
Millington will step down later this year and will remain with Abbey until a suitable successor is appointed.
His departure comes at an awkward time for the UK bank, which has restructured its business to focus on customer relationship management in the personal finance area after a disastrous expansion into corporate and investment banking.
A former group IT director, Millington oversaw the launch of stand-alone Internet bank cahoot in 2000 and was appointed to the board of Abbey National in January 1999. He took on his present role after a one-year stint as managing director of wealth management and long-term savings.
Luqman Arnold, chief executive of Abbey National, says: "Mac first discussed his intention to take early retirement with the chairman at the end of last summer, so I'm very grateful to him for agreeing to put the business before his personal plans and help us to lay the foundations for the successful delivery of our new strategy."
As part of the new strategic direction, Abbey National recently hired Dr Angus Porter as customer propositions director, with overarching responsibility for the company's three customer-facing divisions. A former managing director of BT's consumer division, Porter takes over his new job next week.