Coombe started his very first job with the Commercial Bank of Australia as a bank clerk - a job he describes as being "the lowest of the lowest" within the bank hierarchy - but transferred to Bank of NSW when it acquired his employer. Bank of NSW renamed itself Westpac after the takeover.
In 1991, Coombe left Westpac to join BT Financial Group (BTFG), which was then called Bankers Trust, as chief legal counsel, but just over a decade later he was reunited with Westpac after the bank bought BTFG. "I used to joke with [former Westpac chief executive] David Morgan that I joined Westpac twice, but never out of free will," he says.
Before being appointed as Westpac group executive of retail and business banking in February this year, Coombe achieved the milestone of leading BTFG for five years, a period he treasures greatly.
"Clearly, the highlight for me was five years ago when I was appointed the CEO of the BT Financial Group. That was a role that I always wanted from the moment I joined BT in the early '90s, and to actually get there was a moment of great accomplishment for me," he says.
Among his achievements there, he notes his role in the successful integration of wealth management and banking services.
The biggest change in the financial services industry during his time with BTFG was the shift in pricing power from the product manufacturers to the distributors, he says.
"[It] didn't really happen on any one day, but really started 12 or 13 years ago," he says.
"If you go back in the early '90s, most money was to be made out of the money management side and producing product. What we started to see from the mid-1990s with the advent of the master fund, and this was accelerated when we introduced wrap into the market in 1998, is a change in that whole dynamic with the distributors or the advisers taking a higher part of the value chain."
This profound change came to determine who would survive and who would not.
"There are many who never really adapted to that [change] and either [have] gone out of business or have much smaller businesses now than they used to have," Coombe says.
Coombe has been named more than once as a candidate for the top job at Westpac and some say his recent transition from wealth management to retail banking is further evidence of his candidature.
He makes no secret of his ambitions, but remains realistic about the prospects of succeeding Gail Kelly, the current chief executive.
"You know, she is only young, so she will be around for a long time," he says.
"I'm part of a very large group executive team. Obviously, I like to be considered, but there will be many others that will be part of that consideration."
