Commercial Bank celebrates achievements

Andy Stevens speaks at the Commercial Bank event as a section of the audience looks on.

Commercial Bank recently hosted its annual staff event and gala dinner at the Katara Cultural Hall to celebrate the record profits and achievements.

Managing Director Hussain Alfardan, director board members and more than 1,000 employees attended.

Chief executives and other senior officials from Commercial Bank’s associated banks were also invited, signifying the bank’s strong intention to further develop its regional alliance and expand its strategic footprint into new high-growth markets. Commercial Bank’s group chief executive, Andrew Stevens, who was the keynote speaker, set out his vision for continued success by defining the bank’s new growth strategies, while reaffirming its brand values and promise.

He gave a presentation about the successful history of the bank to date and how its development has mirrored the spectacular growth of Qatar itself. Stevens highlighted the advantages Qatar presented, with its rich cultural heritage, rapid population growth and the world’s highest GDP per capita, and also referred to the emerging, influential and educated Qatari youth as the future of the country.

He welcomed the CEOs of the National Bank of Oman, Salaam Shaksy and United Arab Bank, Paul Trowbridge, and outlined how critical those banks are to Commercial Bank’s future.

Following the recently announced acquisition of more than 70% of Alternatifbank in Turkey, Stevens welcomed the CEO, Hamit Aydogan, to Doha.  The banks, he said, would work together to build revenues by capturing new trade and investment flows emanating out of Turkey as well as from Qatar, the UAE and Oman and through shared product expertise, innovation and business development.  

Reaffirming the bank’s legacy and brand values, Stevens said: “Throughout the past 38 years, Commercial Bank has achieved many ‘firsts’ through the visionary leadership of the bank’s founding members. The bank’s brand values – which were set out by our founding members and give us enduring strength and stability – emphasise our desire to continuously innovate and stay abreast with industry-leading trends. Our brand promise that ‘everything is possible’ speaks to our heritage as well as our future ambition, and will enable us to grow and thrive even more in the future both here in Qatar and abroad, through the strengthening of our regional alliance.”

Stevens also introduced an evolution of Commercial Bank’s visual identity. The bank’s four crescents are now set against a changing colourscape inspired by the sky at dawn, day, dusk and night. The new identity is being rolled out across a variety of channels, and the bank has also relaunched its website, with the colour of its pages regularly changing depending on the time of day customers visit the site.