The role of chief information officer (CIO) is changing amid the evolution of bank architecture, digital infrastructure and technology.
“I think the role of the CIO has drastically changed over the last couple of years,” Ken Meyer, chief information and experience officer at Truist, said recently at Bank Automation Summit Fall 2022 in Seattle. “Our role used to be, you’d sit with your business partners, have some really cool strategy sessions and they would tell you everything they want to do, and you would then have to go and figure out how to do it and build it … now that’s kind of turned on its side.”
Today’s CIO is responsible for providing thought leadership around how to architect a bank in a way that enhances the client experience, Meyer said, noting CIOs must consider how to build technology “in a way that allows us to connect some of the other channels and look for reuse opportunities and more consistency across those channels.”
For example, ahead of the late 2019 merger between BB&T and SunTrust, from which Truist was formed, the decision was made to build a native solution on Amazon Web Services (AWS) for online banking and mobile, Meyer said. Now, Truist is able to “naturally progress” its use of AWS in other areas of the bank, including its contact center, which is currently being moved to an Amazon Connect platform.
Truist’s ability to leverage AWS throughout the bank allows for “possibilities that we didn’t have before for reuse,” Meyer added.
Similarly, the bank recently launched Truist Assist, an AI-enhanced virtual assistant that answers clients’ questions through is mobile and online banking platforms. Truist Assist was built on a native Lex platform and integrates with the bank’s other channels, Meyer said.
Mindset and management
Along with putting the right technology in place, CIOs must also recognize that beyond technology is the people behind it, KeyBank’s Chief Information Officer of Service Digitization Dominic Cugini said at the Summit.
“We have to realize that regardless of how good the process is, how good the tech it’s enabling, if we don’t bring the teams you use along with the change in management, the project will most likely fail,” Cugini said, noting, “That’s a huge shift.”
Today’s CIOs must leave behind the idea of solely building technology and work toward incorporating client experience and changing the mindset of technology teams, he said, adding “they have to be at the forefront of that change.”
CIOs that have shifted their mindset are “able now to leverage today’s modern technology and architecture to really orchestrate those experiences across those channels,” Truist’s Meyer said.
