What's your proudest work-related achievement of the last 12 months?
The most recent item would be our release of ‘fdPay' earlier this year - the ability to make a payment via the first direct app straight from your keyboard in any messaging or social media app on your phone. I'm proud to say that first direct was and still is the first in the UK to bring this kind of innovative technology to market.
What's the number one skill today's IT leaders need?
Technology leaders today are increasingly being looked at to drive the future revenue opportunities for their businesses. The ability to turn innovation into commercial opportunity through more than just automation and cost reduction is a capability of increasing importance as the role that technology teams play shifts in the eyes of most CEOs.
How many people work in IT in your organisation?
We have over 130 staff members working with first direct IT.
What's your top priority for the next 12 months?
My priority over the next year will be to continue to drive our mission to pioneer amazing service, through exploitation of our micro-services architecture, our lean/agile working practices and our growing fintech partnerships to maximise customer value - and the pace of delivery of that value.
We're really excited by the changes that regulation is forcing in the market and the disruption from challengers is making for a really interesting environment for all FIs, and we'll continue to work with our product teams to find innovative ways to capitalise on our unique market position.
What's your annual IT budget?
Confidential.
