by CIO Staff

Standard Chartered ends hunt for new Group CIO amid major reorganisation

News
Mar 25, 20152 mins
CareersFinancial Services Industry

Standard Chartered has announced the appointment of Dr Michael Gorriz as its new Group Chief Information Officer.

Dr Gorriz, the former Vice President and CIO at car manufacturer Daimler AG – which owns a number of automobile and truck brands including Mercedes-Benz and the Smart Car – and will join in the third quarter of 2015 and be based in Singapore. He will report directly to incoming Group Chief Executive Bill Winters.

At the start of the year, Standard Chartered’s CIO and Group Head of Technology and Operations, Jan Verplancke, announced his retirement amid a significant reorganisation at the multinational bank which would see 4,000 job cuts.

Current chief executive, Peter Sands, said: “I am delighted to welcome Michael to Standard Chartered. Michael is an immensely talented CIO, who has worked across our footprint. As a leader in digital transformation, he has the capabilities and experience to drive innovation and change in technology and operations, which are key to delivering our productivity goals and to enhancing our service to clients. I am confident that Michael will be a fantastic addition to Standard Chartered.

The 55-year-old Dr Gorriz is a physicist and engineer by background and progressed through specialist research and design in aerospace to a general management role in Daimler Mexico. Over the past 14 years, he held various CIO roles with the group and since 2008 was responsible for strategy, planning and development of all IT systems, as well as the operation of all data centres and communication networks at Daimler AG.

Dr Gorriz oversaw a large-scale IT transformation in which the carmaker moved to the cloud, handing the keys to its infrastructure, data centres, middleware and database operations to a tech hub in Bangalore as part of an Infosys contract.

In addition, he helped launch Daimler’s driverless truck last year, which can gain up to 80kph and could be brought to market by 2019, the firm said in its 2014 financial results.