Meet Westpac's new technology leaders

Engineering realigned under CTO.

The Westpac Group has confirmed the departure of two more of its most respected technology executives as it continues to shift projects to its outsourcing partners.

The financial giant, whose chief technology officer Sarv Girn was replaced by Jeff Jacobs in October 2011 and its chief information officer Bob McKinnon replaced by Clive Whincup in late November, has now taken steps to restructure its technology engineering team.

Westpac’s head of engineering, Michael Gindy, and general manager of engineering, Randy Fennel, have both left the company and will not be replaced.

“Over the past three years, Westpac has made significant investment in transforming our technology capabilities,” a spokesperson for the bank told iTnews in a statement. “Both Randy and Michael have been instrumental in this - particularly in regards to the foundational changes we have made to technology infrastructure.

“As we move to a new phase of execution and delivery, it is now essential that we focus on embedding the capabilities which Randy and Michael helped establish. As a result, the roles as they were previously defined are no longer required.”

The bank says it remains committed to keeping some engineering capability in-house.

“This in no way changes our view that a strong engineering function is critical to running an effective and productive technology environment. Engineering now forms part of the Chief Technology Office as we continue to look for opportunities to use new and emerging technologies.”

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The restructure places more responsibility on the CTO role held by Jeff Jacobs, a former IT strategist at Commonwealth Bank. Jacobs has also managed application service delivery at Colonial State Bank, eBusiness at Zurich Financial Services and was CIO of AMP’s Indonesian operations.

Under the restructure, Jacobs now oversees Westpac's technology strategy, enterprise architecture, engineering, governance, planning and information security, leaving CIO Clive Whincup to concern himself with managing the bank's outsourcing and offshoring program. Whincup reports to the bank's chief operating officer, John Arthur.

The bank has identified its general managers for infrastructure (Gary Sim) and applications (Paul Spiteri) and former St.George CIO Dhiren Kulkarni (now in charge of customer channels) as its other leading technologists.