Teacher The couple moved to
Rhodesia (now
Zimbabwe), where she taught Latin at
Falcon College while he served in the
Rhodesian Army. They returned to South Africa, where Allan Kelly studied medicine at the
University of the Witwatersrand and Gail Kelly taught at a government high school. in 1986 while pregnant with her oldest daughter and graduated with distinction in 1987. Her performance at the Commonwealth Bank led her to be recruited as CEO of St. George Bank (after the death of the incumbent CEO from a heart attack). She commenced in January 2002 – at the time, St. George was seen as a possible takeover target (especially after the purchase of
Colonial State Bank by the Commonwealth Bank) but Kelly increased the bank's
profitability and achieved much higher levels on
return on assets. She started work as Westpac CEO on 1 February 2008. The merger was approved by the
Federal Court of Australia and finalised on 26 May 2008. The merger resulted in the new combined Westpac Group having 10 million customers, a 25% share of the Australian home loans market and with $108 billion investment funds under its administration. On 13 November 2014, Kelly announced that she would retire as CEO of the Westpac Group on 1 February 2015.
Brian Hartzer, the head of Westpac's Australian financial services group, was appointed as her replacement. Kelly joined the board of
UBS in 2024. ==Book==