News comes this week that Joanna Banks who was due to work with Jeffery Hall as President of the merged Pan Jam/Jamaica Producers Group will now concentrate on associate company Sagicor Group Jamaica as its Executive Vice President, Strategy and Business Development.

Jumping ship though initially perplexing does now make sense.

There was likely to be a butting of heads at the new Pan Jam / Jamaica Producers amalgamation with what in effect looked like two senior heads running the show. Jointly. Now Jeffery Hall who has done a good job at Jamaica Producers and Kingston Wharves will have a clear run. There will be no ambiguity as to who is top dog.

Besides, he can now fill the considerable footprint left by his father Dr Marshall Hall. With Charlie Johnson now in his eighties, Jeffery Hall now in his early fifties can helm this considerable conglomerate.

The thinking here might have been with current President and CEO of Sagicor Group Jamaica Chris Zacca now approaching his mid-sixties, a succession plan needs to be mapped.

Banks has worked in corporate finance with international companies such as energy behemoth Exxon Mobil and machinery equipment outfit Deere& Company. She has acquitted herself at Pan Caribbean and has proven a shoulder for Stephen Facey to lean on both in her capacity as Senior Vice President of Pan Jam Investments and as CEO of Pan Jam Group. She has been with the Facey-led entity since 2016.

This could be an inspired move. Banks can lend her skills to Sagicor for a few years, getting familiar with the organisation, determining its strategic outlook and operating as a de facto number two with the understanding that she will be the one to take over from Chris Zacca having served an apprenticeship of sorts.

The marvellous HBO show Succession is about who will succeed the aging patriarch (Logan Roy) of a multi-billion-dollar media empire. He pits his three children against each other, testing their resolve, probing to see who has the chops for the top job. But that leads to internecine strife, skulduggery and the dark side of human nature with plenty of bloodletting. He tells his eldest son, “ You have to be a killer”. 

Logan Roy unexpectedly dies, and the race is on to succeed him. All the Machiavellian machinations are laid bare.

At the moment Karl Williams  (Executive Vice President, Shared Services, Sagicor Group Jamaica ) and Mark Chisholm (Chief Revenue Officer, Insurance Sagicor Life) are touted as front runners to succeed Zacca.

Both men are in their fifties and will have to preside over a fundamentally different entity that exists today.

Chisholm is an extremely gifted salesman but the Sagicor of the future will have to be an integrated financial services provider.

Sagicor is up against stiffer competition and those looking to knock it off its insurance perch. Digital transformation will be a major factor as operating costs are reduced, and it reclines from doing business from expensive brick and mortar structures.

It is here that Banks strategic acumen and international experience will prove valuable. In her early forties, time is on her side with a full decade on those vying for the top job.

The Board will be keen to avoid a dog fight and things turning nasty. It must make moves to choose a successor soon.

Corporate Jamaica has seen some smooth transitions. Adam Stewart was groomed to succeed his mercurial father as the head of the Sandals /ATL Group and began that process at 26. When his father Butch Stewart died, it was a fait accompli. Adam Stewart was  40.

For years it was understood that Don Wehby was the chosen one to come after Douglas Orane at Grace Kennedy. Again, the transition here was seamless.  He became CEO aged 47.

Sagicor should be looking for a similar outcome.

On his deathbed, Alexander the Great was asked “To whom do you leave your empire?’ He rasped, “To the strongest”

That in turn led to his wife and young son being murdered, forty years of war, treachery and chaos. His empire was split into four parts with Ptolemy ruling in Egypt.