ING Australia has selected David Connaughton, a former IBM business process specialist, as its head of strategy and project management.

Connaughton will join ING Australia on 4 August from IBM where he served as lead for its business transformation outsourcing group.

Connaughton won't be reporting to ING Australia's recently appointed chief information officer Greg Booker, who took up the newly created position after leaving St George Bank. Connaughton will instead report to chief operating officer, Fred Bertram.

"David will report to the COO — this shows how important the role is," a spokesperson fro ING Australia told ZDNet.com.au.

ING Australia is currently conducting several major transformation projects to improve its e-business capabilities, the spokesperson said.

"We've got a lot of projects underway to transform our e-business capabilities. He'll be very much involved in project implementation and execution."

ING Australia's COO Fred Bertram said in a statement: "[Connaughton's] strong execution and project management skills will be a great asset for ING Australia as we continue our two-year transformation program to streamline processes and enhance our IT and e-business capabilities."