National Australia Bank has appointed a new head and executive team for its Next Generation core banking systems overhaul program in preparation for the project's next phase.

The new Next Generation team, which will handle moving the bank onto a new core banking platform over the next five years, will be led by Christine Bartlett. Bartlett, who will start with the bank next month as executive program director, will report to the bank's group executive group business services, Gavin Slater.

Bartlett was previously the CEO of real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle and has also worked for IBM in senior roles.

Six executives, sourced from other sections of the bank, have been appointed to the program and will report to Bartlett.

The new executive roles and the executives who have filled them are:

• Core Banking Business Integration and Transformation: David Gall, previously the bank's executive general manager of corporate banking and specialised businesses.
• Finance and Risk Business Integration and Transformation: Greg Braddy, previously the CFO for NAB Australia.
• Technology Program Direction/Management: David Killen, previously the head of technology operations
• Enterprise Solution Architecture/Direction: Stephen Phillips, who has been working with the Next Generation program since it started.
• Enterprise Data Management: John Inglis, who previously headed up Regulatory Reporting.
• Program Management Direction: Helen Ward, who has worked in various roles within the bank across the UK, New Zealand and Australia.

NAB also announced changes to the structure of its Technology division. The division will now have five teams: Strategy; Architecture and Innovation; Project Services; Application Development and services; and Integrated Services Delivery.

"The transformation of our technology division from a developer of technology to a provider of IT services has been underway for some time. These new appointments will continue that process and support phase two of the next-generation program delivery," Slater said in a statement.

The bank hasn't yet given any detail on what its plans are for phase two, but a spokesperson for the bank said that information would follow later.

Phase one of the program, a $30 million investment in the bank's direct banking platform Ubank for which NAB had selected Oracle, was in the final stages of testing now, Slater said. Oracle was also involved in planning the requirements, roadmap and milestones for the project.

The Next Generation program was formerly headed up by Glenn King, who also had responsibility for the bank's internal services company ServCo.