Appointed to the executive board in June 2009, the CIO of Credit Suisse discusses the role of IT in financial services organisations and what it takes to grab that seat at the boardroom table. Writer Michelle Price

In the world of corporate IT, the strategic importance of the chief information officer (CIO) function is a heated talking point. While functions such as that of the chief financial officer have traditionally boasted a de facto right to sit at the boardroom table, the CIO has struggled to gain entry to the elite boardroom club. Frustrated by the widespread perception of IT as an introspective support function populated by long-haired geeks and a bewildering array of obscure acronyms, the IT function has long-endured a lukewarm press among business chiefs who regard it as peripheral to the broader corporate strategy. This was starkly underlined in a December 2009 survey of UK-based CIOs commissioned by technology powerhouse Salesforce.com, which found that just 14% of respondents sit on the executive board, while only half of CIOs surveyed report to a board member.

But times are changing. Throughout the past decade, CIOs across all sectors have worked hard to challenge the status quo, and nowhere is the CIO gaining more kudos at board level than in the fast-paced world of financial services technology. One such hard-working CIO is Credit Suisse's Karl Landert. In June last year, the 51-year-old Mr Landert ascended to that much-coveted seat at the bank's boardroom table following a 25-year career working in the IT industry.

"It's a career that has gone through its ups and downs and it has not been as straightforward as you would expect," says Mr Landert. But the "good news", as Mr Landert puts it, is that he has earned the seat at the board not through time served, but "by the respect that the IT function has achieved".

This is not a minor victory when confronted with the labyrinthine IT environment typically associated with a vast universal bank such as Credit Suisse. According to the bank's annual report for 2009, Credit Suisse's IT division is staffed by more than 10,000 individuals operating globally at nearly every level of the IT stack, from software development and service delivery management right down to the data centre. The IT division is structured according to a number of functional and regional departments comprising IT private banking, IT investment banking, IT corporate systems, IT infrastructure services, IT architecture, as well as four regional IT departments serving Switzerland, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific and Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Within this matrix, the bank's IT environment is populated by about 6000 applications.

If Mr Landert's path to the board has not proved straightforward, this only reflects the relative immaturity of the CIO role. Like most present-day IT chiefs, Mr Landert did not train as a computer scientist but as a physicist with a specific focus on the engineering aspects of the discipline. He made the move into the world of IT following his graduation in 1985, taking a job with IBM - where he was to spend some 13 years - just as the financial services IT industry was exploding. "It was a rapidly expanding industry with a lot of potential for future careers," he recalls.

After a spell working in the pharmaceutical industry, Mr Landert returned in 2001 to the world of financial services technology, taking a role as head of application development at Credit Suisse and later becoming CIO of Credit Suisse Private Bank. In 2008, he took on the role of global CIO, and was appointed to the board in June 2009 where he reports to Brady W Dougan, the bank's CEO. Although the appointment has been achieved through hard-won respect for the IT function this is not to suggest that the position is political: IT issues are thoroughly discussed at the table and the CEO himself takes a close interest in IT strategy, says Mr Landert.

"We have a lot of intense, detailed and good discussions at the board level, much of which is driven by Brady [Dougan]."

Valuing the invaluable

Despite his foray into the pharmaceutical industry, Mr Landert says the financial services industry has always proved uniquely attractive. "In the financial services industry, technology is at the core of the company. Without IT, a financial services organisation cannot function, so we represent the production and to a large extent the research and development that you would find in a classical industrial organisation." In the financial services industry, IT has long surpassed the status of support function, as it is commonly perceived in other industries, and for this reason Mr Landert strongly opposes attempts, common to both the financial services and beyond, to measure the so-called 'value' of IT.

At Credit Suisse, he continues, the value of IT is not distinguishable from the success of the firm at large and this is reflected by Mr Landert's position on the board. "IT in itself has no value - it's a part of the business and you need to measure the combined value that you provide. I'm very clear when I measure the success of my IT organisation that we measure ourselves on the bank results, not on budgets. Our value is how the bank is performing."

But if this is the case, has the IT budget - by far the biggest chunk of overall expenditure for any bank - been deprived of all meaning in the financial services industry? Can an onlooker discern anything about the organisation's attitude towards IT from the budget alone? "You obviously need to have budgets - you have to have a way of measuring continuous operational improvement and the budget is part of that," says Mr Landert. But in order to understand the extent to which a firm invests in IT and technology more broadly, the absolute budget is not meaningful and this is true of Credit Suisse, he says.

"There is a willingness within Credit Suisse to invest heavily in IT but this is not achieved by having more IT budget, it is achieved through an integrated planning approach with the business. IT is just a part of the business plan and the general investment to grow the business," he says, adding: "In that respect, the IT budget doesn't indicate whether or not we are providing value, it has to be seen in the context of business expansion and what we want to achieve as a bank."

So fundamental has IT become to the industry that there are many enthusiasts, not to mention self-interested parties, who claim that the technology is now, in many sectors, occupying the driver's seat, advancing new business models and strategies. But Mr Landert is not convinced by this analysis. "It's a two-way street. The way we look at IT is that it is not a support function but a key driver of the business and with that you become a catalyst." But he uses the word catalyst with care, stressing: "It would be arrogant and not completely accurate to say IT is driving the business - it's a two-way interaction: the business and IT are sitting at the same table and working together to define strategies. I've seen this shift: we're not taking orders anymore, we're at the table challenging ideas and challenging one another."

Perspiration, inspiration

Despite the industry's love affair with technology, a brief glance at the world's major banking boards indicates that Mr Landert is among a few privileged elite: Citigroup, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and Barclays, for example, all lack a CIO or chief technology officer among their senior executive board or committee. Instead, the IT function falls under the chief operating officer's remit, along with several other functions such as facilities and human resources. So for CIOs across the industry, what does it take to make it to the top table?

"For anybody who aspires to the board as a CIO, the first thing you have to do is deliver," says Mr Landert. "This might sound obvious, but you do have to work very, very hard to deliver on very basic things such as production stability - and to keep your promises. This is the foundation and it should be a given, but to get there you have to spend a considerable amount of energy, and effort, have the right team and the right processes: it's a lot of perspiration and inspiration."

Most importantly, he advises, CIOs must put the interests of the institution first. But exploding the myth of the inscrutable tech-geek and communicating clearly and effectively in business terms is also critical. "It is very important that you speak the same language: it's not about the latest gadgets, it's about what technology can do for the business. That's an important distinction and success factor for CIOs," says Mr Landert. And certain personal qualities are required too. "You have to have enough self-confidence to be very honest in the way you convey both your successes and your failures as an IT organisation. But obviously on balance you have to have more successes than failures," he adds.

Finally, says Mr Landert, be patient. "Aspiring to the board is a good thing but sometimes it's not a straight line and having setbacks gives you the necessary experience to get there."

Career history

Karl Landert

2009 - Appointed to Credit Suisse's executive board

2008 - Appointed global CIO for Credit Suisse

2006 - Appointed CIO of Credit Suisse Private Bank and CIO of European operations

2004 - Appointed head of IT

2001 - Joined Credit Suisse as head of application development

1998 - CIO and head of global IT management of Novartis Pharma AG (Switzerland)

1985 - Held various management positions in sales and systems engineering at IBM Switzerland

1984 - Graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich with a degree in physics

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