Commbank's Harte best bank CIO two years running

Hard work pays off for behemoth bank

Commonwealth Bank of Australia CIO Michael Harte has been awarded the best bank CIO, or "eBanker", for 2008 at a ceremony in Sydney last night giving him the title for the second year in a row.

Contending the award for best CIO or eBanker of the year with Harte was a who's-who of bank IT leaders, including Iain Blacklaw from the Bank of Queensland, ANZ CIO David Cartwright, Dianne Sias from Westpac, Suncorp's Jeff Smith, Nigel Smyth from the Macquarie Group, and 2006 winner Michelle Tredenick NAB.

Harte joined the Commonwealth Bank in 2006, and according to the ceremony's host Samantha Armitage from the Seven Network "is regarded by the investment community internationally as a leader in open systems, architecture, investment management software, and systems development".

Harte leads the development of the CBA's group technology function and its enterprise-wide IT strategy, and while no reason was given why he won the award it may have been influenced by his $500 million dollar-plus legacy systems replacement program expected to catapult the bank into the twenty-first century.

As group executive enterprise IT and chief information officer, Harte scored a healthy remuneration package of $1.7 million last year.

"I'm not sure who does the voting, but you are very kind," Harte said when receiving the award. "There are thousands of us back at work, some still there right now, every single day struggling for some recognition and this is the right sort of recognition for our team."

Harte said the real award the IT staff are after is recognition in the industry as being "the finest".

"We are all struggling every single day to make sure our business is regarded by our customers as being the finest and number one in customer service, so we are not going to rest until we have got that award."

The awards ceremony is produced by Australian Banking and Finance magazine.

More about: ANZ, Bank of Queensland, CBA, Commonwealth Bank, Commonwealth Bank Of Australia, COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA, Leader, Leader Computers, NAB, PLUS, Seven Network, Suncorp, Westpac, Westpac
References show all

Comments

1

gordon stanley

Sat 13/11/2010 - 17:52

this guy has won the award 4 years running now and is on the AFR power list and gets $4million bucks - i dont get it? why do the banks screw everyone and make their guys heros?

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the Computerworld comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Whitepapers
All whitepapers
Sign up now to get free exclusive access to reports, research and invitation only events.
Featured Download
/downloads/product/149/dropbox/

Dropbox

Dropbox is a sharing tool that allows you to synchronize your documents, as well share files with others. It automatically uploads the files to the ...

Computerworld newsletter

Join the most dedicated community for IT managers, leaders and professionals in Australia