Barclays is a British multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is a universal bank with operations in retail, wholesale and investment banking, as well as wealth management, mortgage lending and credit cards. It has operations in over 50 countries and territories and has around 48 million customers. Managing Director & Chief Information Officer of Europe Middle East Retail & Business Banking and of Global Operations, Anthony Watson, announced exclusively to CIO UK in February that he was leaving his role at Barclays – heading to the US to become Global CIO of megabrand Nike. During his tenure at Barclays, Watson has discussed his technology vision and spoken at CIO events. Watson has also written popular articles on CIO UK about cyber security and the appliance of data science over expensive 'Big Data solutions'. What is your job title?Managing Director & Chief Information Officer, Europe Middle East Retail & Business Banking and of Global Operations When did you start your current role?2009 Have you completed an MBA?Yes Order the following sources of advice/information by value to you:1. In-house2. Analyst3. Peer group4. Consultant5. Vendors Technology strategy and spending What is the major transformational IT project that has been recently completed, or is underway at your organisation?We have many underway at Barclays. Probably the largest was creating a consolidated pan-European banking platform across 22 countries. The largest of its type project being delivered across Europe today. What impact will it/does it have on the organisation?Signficantly reduce our costs – almost 40% reduction whilst significantly improving our speed to market by almost 80%. What new strategic technology deals has your organisation struck and with whom?We spend almost £3 billion a year on technology across Barclays. We have deals with all major suppliers, globally across our Group. What is the IT budget?Just over £3 billion per annum What is the strategic aim of the CIO and IT operations for the next financial year?Reduce cost, increase effiencies  whilst continuing to provide innovation for our customers and clients. Transformation achievements Would you describe the CIO role as a transformation leader in your organisation?Yes Describe the transformations you have led / been involved in, how did they transform operations, customer experience or the organisation?Over the past two years Barclays has been leading the way in banking innovation, specifically with Barclays PingIt – Mobile Payments app. Since it launch over 18 months ago it has become the most popular payments app in Europe. Almost £10 billion has been transfered with this app in the last 6 months alone. We out rank all other payment apps in Europe. Beyond technology, can you describe a business transformation programme that you own or contribute to?Project Transform. Barclays organisational transformational programme helping the Group rightsize the organisation to meet the challenges and demands of Banking for the digital generation. What percentage of your applications / infrastructure is run from the Cloud?All. We run a private Cloud. How is the use by employees of their own technology, use of mobiles and social networking impacting operations, customer experiences or the organisation at present?We encourage BYOD and fully support our employees. Do you have a plan in place for how to deal with shadow IT and BYOD. How do you influence and engage executives, place the right controls around employee choice and engage with the organisation on this issue?Yes. Where do you seek transformational inspiration from?Mainly Silicon Vally. The CIO role in the business Who do you report to?CEO of Europe Middle East Retail & Business Banking Do you have a seat on the board?Yes How often do you meet with the CEO?Weekly Does your organisation have a digital leader and what is the difference in their responsibilities to yours?Yes, but they report to me. What percentage of IT budget do you control and what percentage of IT budget does your digital peer hold?100% The IT department How many staff make up the IT team?(What is the split between in-house/outsourced staff)Almost 3000 Describe the CIO’s management team, do you have direct reports that develop the relationship and services between the business and IT?I have 11 direct reports and yes they do. And how many log-in accounts do you issue across you organisation?180K What is the primary technology platform? ( for example ERP, Website, trading system)There is not just one platform, given Barclays scale and size we have multiple.