Westpac’s tech chief Dave Curran now reporting to CEO

Westpac Group’s CIO, Dave Curran, is now reporting to CEO, Brian Hartzer, under a reshuffle of executive reporting lines announced on Monday.

Curran, who was appointed as CIO last July, is no longer reporting to chief operating officer, John Arthur, who is now responsible for all retail product development, marketing, analytics, and group-wide operations.

“Technology plays a central role is in everything that we do and he [Hartzer] wanted to be close to that,” a Westpac spokesperson told CIO Australia.

“Brian is passionate about technology – always has been. In his old role as head of our AFS [Australian Financial Services] businesses, he has been pushing the digital revolution side of everything that we are doing for customers so this is something that he is incredibly close to,” the spokesperson said.

Technology is at the forefront of the Westpac’s customer service strategy. Last year, the bank embarked on a plan to build a customer service hub that unites systems and applications and customer data from across the organisation. This includes systems and data from other businesses within the group like Bank SA and St. George Bank.

Announcing the changes on Monday morning, Hartzer said that given the changing ways customers are choosing to manage their finances – particularly through online, digital, and mobile solutions – the technology function will be critical to the bank achieving its strategy.

“As such, it is appropriate that David Curran’s role will report directly to me. We remain focused on building one of the world’s great service businesses, and refining the responsibilities of my team will support this,” he said.

The Westpac spokesperson added that the focus has been on delivering systems and services that make it easier for customers to interact with the bank, driven largely by the desire to do more online than ever before.

“It’s making technology serve the customer rather than the other way around really, which [is the case] in some organisations,” the spokesperson said.

Today is Hartzer first day in the new role. He replaced Gail Kelly, who retired in November last year.

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