Standard Chartered gets a new CIO, thanks to ING
Standard Chartered has hired Roel Louwhoff as its new chief of digital, technology, and innovation officer to replace the outgoing CIO Michael Gorriz.
Gorriz would be retiring in December to focus on his other director and advisory roles that he has with various companies in Europe and Asia.
Louwhoff was the chief operations and transformation officer at ING where he has been working since 2014 and this poaching by Standard Chartered was some time coming considering the changes and the overhaul that has been happening at ING over the last few months which had led to sidelining of a few members of the senior management team over there.
Winters, CEO of Standard Chartered, said: “Roel joins us at a critical time in our transformation into the agile, digital, and future-focused organisation we need to be. We will benefit from his perspective as a digital leader and I look forward to working with him on taking our technology platform to even greater heights. He takes over from the solid foundations Michael has laid: a strong and diverse technology leadership team and a modern, cloud-based architecture that is the bedrock for the Bank’s digital ambitions.”
Digitisation and innovation are likely to be the key for major banks in the years ahead. as they face stiff competition from new banks which are started with the needs of the new generation in mind. Many of the new banks that are started are basically digital banks with most of the transactions and other processing being automated and online. The users are also attracted via online and mobile applications and this makes banking extremely easy. So, it is up to the legacy banks to play catch up at this time which is why we are seeing so many changes at the top in many banks.
As far as ING is concerned, it has witnessed a big overhaul of its innovation programme ever since the new CEO Steven Van Rijswijk took over last October. He has consolidated all the innovation programmes under a single dedicated unit under the head of the bank’s wholesale banking innovation head. This has led to the sidelining of some members of the senior management team and we are likely to see more churning at the top in the coming months.
