Westpac jumps on the chief transformation wagon with new hire

Westpac’s appointment of Yianna Papanikolaou as chief transformation officer (CTO) continues the trend of organisations continuing to bring in new c-suite position in executive teams.

This is a newly created position for Westpac.

According to McKinsey, at the heart of the CTO’s role is an ability to strike the right balance between carrot and stick, between short-term improvement and long-term value, and between making sure line managers themselves take responsibility for change and personally ensuring they deliver results quickly and with suitably high ambition.

“Such judgment is also important when it comes to deploying the often-limited resources at their disposal to the different priorities of a transformation,” the authors write.

The chief transformation officer is the face of transformation and “sets the tone, spurs enthusiasm and challenges current wisdom,” according to Tanya Graham, executive general manager, strategic programs at Healthscope.

The role of the CTO has emerged over the past five years, Westpac joins other giants such as Telstra, BHP and other big four bank NAB in creating this new role.

Before the creation of this role, change management roles were task focused and linear in nature, but the CTO works across various functions such as marketing, HR, customer experience, digital and finance.  

Papanikolaou will sit on the Group’s Executive Team and report to CEO, Peter King. She will have responsibility for major change and investment programs and accountability for the CORE (Customer Outcomes and Risk Excellence) Program.

She will begin her tenure in April.

King said, “Continuing to transform culture and risk management remains a major focus for the Group in our efforts to build a simpler, stronger bank and the CORE program is an integral part of this plan.

Papanikolaou recently joined Westpac as General Manager, Group Transformation Office.

Before Westpac, Papanikolaou was at Deutsche Bank in the UK, where she held several leadership positions, most recently as managing director, chief transformation Office. Prior to this, she was at Royal Bank of Scotland, as head of strategy and transformation for the corporate bank.

Earlier in her career she was part of Accenture’s Financial Services consulting practice.