Fred Goodwin, Scottish banker and accountant
Frederick Anderson Goodwin FRSE FCIBS (born 17 August 1958) is a Scottish chartered accountant and former banker who was Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) between 2001 and 2009.
From 2000 to 2008, he presided over RBS's rapid rise to global prominence as the world's largest company by assets (£1.9 trillion), and fifth-largest bank by stock market value and its even more rapid fall as RBS was forced into effective nationalisation in 2008. On 11 October 2008, Goodwin officially announced his resignation as chief executive and an early retirement, effective from 31 January 2009 – a month before RBS announced that its 2008 loss totalled £24.1 billion, the largest annual loss in UK corporate history.From January 2010, he was employed as a senior adviser to RMJM, an international architecture firm. He left the position after less than a year.Goodwin was knighted in 2004 for his services to banking, but in a highly unusual move the honour was annulled by the Queen on 1 February 2012. The Cabinet Office explained "The scale and severity of the impact of his actions as CEO of RBS made this an exceptional case."