Tom Richardson, the chief technology officer at Colonial First State, has departed to become the chief information officer ( CIO) at Great Southern Bank.
Last month, Richardson joined Great Southern Bank after working for CBA for almost 17 years, most recently with its Colonial First State division, which CBA has since sold a majority interest in.
He takes over for previous CTO Steven Willson, who departed to accept a new role at cloud-based call recording company Dubber. Great Southern Bank’s technology leadership position has been changed from CTO to CIO.
Richardson will focus on providing more client advantages at Great Southern Bank as part of a three-year investment initiative.
According to Excellent Southern Bank CEO and managing director Paul Lewis, the bank, formerly known as Credit Union Australia (CUA), has experienced “great early outcomes from our IT investments over the last couple of years.”
“Tom, with his mix of IT understanding, relationship building skills and long experience with digital transformation projects, is perfectly placed to make sure our customers get the maximum benefit from that investment,” Lewis said.
Richardson said he was “pleased” to join the mutual bank.
“The opportunities around data are where the interesting work is,” he said.
“It’s about generating value out of what we’ve done, then using data to deliver further value for customers.
“We’ll also be looking for the right opportunities to work with fintech organisations that can add value to Great Southern Bank.”
Richardson’s CTO role at Colonial First State will not be replaced.
Before CBA, Richardson spent over 12 years at Accenture, first joining as a senior technology manager in the UK before relocating to Australia as the senior manager for financial services.
