NAB appoints CTOO as part of new look exec team

Leadership settled after months up in the air

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National Australia Bank has appointed Barclaycard Global COO Patrick Wright to chief technology and operations officer.

“As we reshape our business, Patrick will lead our simplification, digitisation and automation agenda to deliver greater efficiency and create a simpler and easier experience for our customers and bankers,” said CEO Andrew Thorburn in a statement on Tuesday morning.

Wright has been with Barclays since 2012 as COO of Barclaycard (the credit card and payment services division of the bank) in the US and in 2015 became Barclaycard’s global COO. Eight months ago he also absorbed responsibility for Barclays in the Americas heading a team of 15,000.

He also served as president and CEO of ATM and banking hardware-makers Wincor Nixdorf, after 17 years with JP Morgan Chase.

“He has extensive experience in driving major transformations in large financial services companies and innovating in fast-paced, competitive and highly-regulated markets,” Thorburn added.

Acting CTOO Matthew Lawrence will remain with NAB in a key leadership role, the bank said.

Shake-up

The appointment is one of three announced today, with former NSW premier Mike Baird taking the role of chief customer officer, corporate and institutional banking just weeks after he controversially quit politics claiming he wanted to spend more time with his family.

Sharon Cook was appointed to the new role of chief legal and commercial counsel, bringing the number of direct reports into Thorburn to ten.

It appears the banks executive team is now settled, following a shake-up in July that resulted in the departure of its most senior technology executive Renee Roberts, then group executive enterprise services and transformation.

‘Enterprise services and transformation’ became ‘Technology and Operations’, with Bob Melrose, executive general manager business management and personal banking, first taking the acting CTOO role, followed by Lawrence.

At the time Thorburn said the "time was right" to refresh the executive team after two years of addressing "major legacy issues".

Horror run

At the end of last year NAB sent account details of 60,000 overseas customers to an incorrect email address, and worked with regulators and Google to rectify the massive failure.

In October the bank suffered multiple rounds of outages that affected its internet banking platform and payment processing, characterised as a horror run.