Boucher was chief executive of Bank of Ireland’s Irish Retail Division since January 2006 where he oversaw the company’s land bank and development loans growing to €7.1 billion
He was appointed as a Director of the Group in October 2006
Richie joined Bank of Ireland in December 2003 as chief executive, Corporate Banking from the Royal Bank of Scotland where he had been Regional managing director – Corporate Banking, London and South East England and previously held a number of prominent roles with the Ulster Bank Group and also worked in ICC Bank
He was born in Kitwe in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) to Irish parents, his father being from Dublin and his mother being from County Cavan
Richie was primarily educated at St George’s College, a Catholic boarding school in Salisbury in Southern Rhodesia (now Harare in Zimbabwe)
He later attended Rockwell College, County Tipperary, and Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated with a degree in business before pursuing a career in banking
Boucher has never lost his distinctive Rhodesian/Southern African accent though he did spend his first seventeen years in Southern Africa
On 2 July 2008, he told the Oireachtas Finance Committee “unequivocally, we do not think there is a Northern Rock in Ireland”, and the Central Bank here has stricter rules for how much ready cash banks must hold than any other country where the group does business
In January 2011, he admitted that information supplied to the Dáil on bank staff bonuses was both misleading and incorrect
He advised property developer Seán Dunne on his acquisition of the iconic Jury’s hotel site in Ballsbridge