UniCredit on edge of tomorrow with new innovation team
UniCredit wants to make the “bank of tomorrow” with the creation of a new transformation and innovation advisory board.
It will be a mixture of internal and external specialists. Unicredit says this follows on from the recent appointment of Finja Kütz as group chief transformation officer.
Designed to deliver “tangible and constructive solutions to yet unknown challenges”
Kütz says it is an “exciting initiative which aims to actively deliver tangible and constructive solutions to yet unknown challenges”.
The board will meet quarterly to debate and review critical topics for the banking industry such as technology and data, consumer trends, fintech innovation, and security and risk mitigation, with the objective of “proposing tangible development opportunities” to the UniCredit CEO, as well as regularly debriefing the main board of directors.
The advisory board will include four external technology and “innovation thought leaders” who will join internal staff members as permanent members.
These are Eileen Burbidge, Theresa Payton, Dr. Carlo Ratti and Dr. Katia Walsh.
Burbidge you will probably know well. She is a special fintech envoy to Her Majesty’s Treasury. She is a co-founder and partner at Passion Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm. In 2015, Burbidge was awarded as a member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her contribution to entrepreneurship.
Payton was the first woman ever to hold the office of White House chief information officer within the executive office of the president. She is president, CEO and chief advisor of the cybersecurity and intelligence company Fortalice Solutions and co-founder of the cybersecurity product firm Dark Cubed.
Ratti is a practicing architect and a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he founded the Senseable City Lab, which investigates and anticipates how digital technologies are changing the way people live in cities.
Walsh is Vodafone’s first chief global data and analytics officer where she built the group’s big data and artificial intelligence (AI) capability. Before Vodafone, she led “data-driven and customer-centric cultures” for the financial services sector.
It’s fair to say they know what they are doing and UniCredit must be a happy bunny to get them on its side.
