On June 14, Desjardins Group's new president and CEO Guy Cormier announced a number of new appointments and the creation of several new divisions.

Denis Berthiaume has been made Senior Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer. He will report directly to Cormier, and his mandate will be to supervise Desjardins Group’s overall operations. Berthiaume will continue to serve as Senior Vice-President and General Manager of Wealth Management and Life and Health Insurance until his successor has been appointed.

New responsibilities

Cormier is also taking on some new duties himself: his responsibilities will now include supervising the teams in charge of officer relations and support, the cooperative difference, internal audit, as well as Desjardins Group strategy and innovation.

When he was elected in March, Cormier said that his leadership would reflect his experience in the caisses, at the base of the movement. He has decided to group together all caisse employees in both Quebec and Ontario who are involved in the distribution of products and services. They will now report to the new Caisse Network and Member and Client Services Executive Division. In addition, there will be four other executive divisions responsible for designing the offers to other client groups. The new heads of these five divisions are:

• Éric Lachaîne, Senior Vice-President, Caisse Network and Member and Client Services
• André Chatelain, Senior Vice-President, Personal Services and Desjardins Group Marketing
• Marie-Claude Boisvert, Senior Vice-President, Business Services
• Denis Berthiaume, Senior Vice-President, Wealth Management and Life and Health Insurance (interim)
• Denis Dubois, Senior Vice-President, Property and Casualty Insurance

Four executive divisions

Finally, Cormier announced the creation of four executive divisions to oversee support activities under the leadership of:

• Marie-Huguette Cormier, Senior Vice-President, Human Resources and Communications
• Réal Bellemare, Senior Vice-President, Finance, Treasury and Administration
• Francine Champoux, Senior Vice-President, Risk Management
• Chadi Habib, Senior Vice-President, Information Technology

The announcement indicated that Sylvie Paquette and Denis Dubois will continue to serve as co-Presidents of Desjardins General Insurance Group until the end of 2016 to ensure a seamless transition for this business line.