The chief executive of Macquarie has announced her retirement hours before a tense annual general meeting was scheduled to kick off.Macquarie informed the Australian Stock Exchange on Thursday morning that chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake would retire in November after eight years in charge.She will be succeeded by the group’s head of banking and financial services, Greg Ward.“Over her last eight years as CEO, and for almost four decades with the company, Shemara has steered Macquarie through expansion into new markets, the dislocation of the Covid pandemic, and significantly enhanced recognition of our brand and the value we bring to global clients and communities,” chairman Glenn Stevens said in the statement to the ASX.The company used a 2018 shareholder meeting to announce Ms Wikramanayake’s appointment.Macquarie is set to hold its annual general meeting on Thursday, where a collective of more than 160 shareholders, including large US pension funds, are set to grill company leadership over fossil fuel investment.“Investors are highly concerned to see Macquarie pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into one of the biggest proposed gas fracking operations in the world, the Beetaloo Basin, supercharging climate impacts including more severe bushfires, cyclones and floods,” Market Forces policy analyst Morgan Pickett said.More to come