Westpac's McKinnon steps down as CIO

Westpac has today announced that star chief information officer Bob McKinnon will step back from his role in favour of a more senior leadership position in the bank's newly formed Group Services business, leaving the CIO position with an uncertain future.

Bob McKinnon
(Credit: Westpac)

Westpac today announced a major reshuffle of the business into two arms: the Australian Financial Services group, which will consolidate the Westpac Group's retail banking brands and service; and the Group Services Group, which will encompass the Technology, Operations and Legal services of the business.

The bank said in a statement that McKinnon, who has led a revival of the bank's IT deployment services in recent years, has decided to "step back from a full-time group executive role" and will assist the bank's group chief operating officer, John Arthur, in leading the Group Services division.

Westpac group CEO Gail Kelly described McKinnon and Arthur as "seasoned executives".

"In John and Bob, we have two seasoned executives, each with a record of delivering strong commercial outcomes. Over the past three years they have worked closely together on a wide range of critical projects including IT transformation, merger integration, our Strategic Investment Priorities portfolio, and more recently our new sourcing plans," Kelly said.

Westpac told ZDNet Australia in a statement this morning that future plans for the now empty CIO post are as yet unclear.

McKinnon arrived at Westpac after a stint as the Commonwealth Bank CIO, and then spent his three years in the Westpac role building strong vendor relationships with its transformation partners including IBM, with which it inked a deal worth over $2 billion.

McKinnon has also worked closely on the bank's plans for "best sourcing" — a new workforce sourcing model that would see the bank draw on resources from contractors.