About

Prior to joining ANZ Banking Group in 2007, Bob Santamaria had been a partner for 20 years at the law firm now known as Allens, specialising in M&A and corporate reconstructions, serving as executive partner of the corporate department and handling the client relationships with Rio Tinto, Amcor, ANZ Bank, BHP, Goldman Sachs, JBWere and Aviva. On his transition into in-house work, Santamaria identifies that his time at ANZ Bank has been some of the best in his extensive career, saying, ‘after fond memories of my years at Allens, my 11 years at ANZ have been the most absorbing of my professional life, the quality of the work, the constant challenges to solve, [and] the variety of the issues all mean the role is exacting and wonderful’.

Santamaria particularly enjoys working with his talented leadership team whom he describes as ‘outstanding technical lawyers and great leaders of their teams’. In his leadership he has sought to achieve two principal outcomes: First, to inculcate in the approximately 230 lawyers in the team a commercial focus so as to be sought out and valued by the business. Second, to have all the best lawyers in the region keen to do ANZ’s work. During his tenure thus far, Santamaria has overseen the bank’s reaction to the Banking Royal Commission, the bank’s win at the High Court regarding fees in a class action law suit, and the novel arrangement his team designed to solve the bank’s “Opes Prime” issues.