AMP advice chief risk officer resigns

Writing on LinkedIn this week, Pally Bargri confirmed that he had resigned from the advice business after four years with the wealth giant.

“Having reflected very deeply about how I feel, what’s most important to me and why, I announced earlier today [15 May] my resignation from AMP,” Mr Bargri said.

“I am immensely proud of all that my teams and I have achieved, and the privilege and honour I’ve had working with some intelligent, committed and loyal people.”

Mr Bargri continued: “When I think of where I’m personally at, and the energy and commitment the organisation needs from me now, I conclude that I have insufficient capacity to carry through the important task of navigating the days and months ahead.

“Perhaps the ambiguity of what I’ll do next, and the uncertainty about the opportunity that lies ahead, is a nice challenge to have. But for now, I look forward to sharing all I have with my two girls, as I begin to contemplate what may be next.”

A spokesperson from AMP told Mortgage Business sister title ifa that Mr Bargri will leave the business in mid-July, and that an internal and external search for a replacement, led by chief risk officer Jenny Fagg, has already commenced.

During his tenure with the business, Mr Bargri focused on “delivering a new approach to compliance for the advice business” and was involved in efforts to strengthen AMP’s governance, remediation and audit approaches, the spokesperson said.

Mr Bargri’s resignation follows on from the royal commission’s damning allegations of charging fees to customers when no service was provided; that AMP intentionally misled the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC); and that there was potentially improper amendment of an independent report to the AMP board that was provided to ASIC.

Since the allegations were made public during the second round of hearings, the ASX-listed lender, which recently announced the immediate resignation of its CEO and several of its board members, apologised “unreservedly for the misconduct and failures in regulatory disclosures”. 

However, it has lost more than $1 billion in shareholder value since March, and it is facing four separate class actions from shareholders and could potentially face criminal charges.

Moody’s Investors Service has also warned that the testimony of AMP Limited during the royal commission, which revealed “a number of governance issues”, has put the group’s credit profile “under pressure”.

[Related: AMP’s governance ‘failures’ negatively impact rating outlook]