AIG head Edward Liddy has had enough. He is leaving the company.
He has reportedly been talking to the board for a while about his exit strategy and although he will stay on as both chief executive and chairman until a successor is found, I think it’s fair to say that these past few months will not be among his fondest memories.
“This isn’t exactly what I thought I’d be doing in retirement,” he said Thursday in an interview.
From Liddy’s perspective, catering to the demands of all the different “cooks in the kitchen” that now govern AIG is a near-impossible challenge.
He said the job entailed answering to the board, the Fed, the Treasury, Congress and 450 regulatory bodies in 130 countries.
“It doesn’t make sense to have one person do it,” he added.
Instead, he thinks the job he has been doing needs to become two separate roles: a chairman responsible for governance and “walking the halls of Congress,” and a chief exec to run operations.
Sounds like a good plan? Now…Who wants to do it?