If anything underscores the crucial nature of information technology to banking operations, it is the growing numbers of executives crossing over from other parts of the business. As a former head of corporate banking, Catherine Bessant, global technology and operations executive at Bank of America (BoA), typifies this new breed.
Rather than being a hindrance, though, her non-IT background is something Ms Bessant sees as a definite advantage. “I don’t know how I would do my job if I didn’t have experience in the businesses, and I think that’s increasingly true in technology,” she says. “As a discipline, every element of how we do technology is changing so rapidly that the issue isn’t – as it was when I was coming out of college – can you programme in Cobol [common business-oriented language], but do you have the critical thinking and understanding of the business to set technology strategy, and think about what development capabilities you need in order to execute it.”
