Australia's NAB has appointed Lloyds Banking Group's Pete Steel to the newly created role of group executive, digital data and artificial intelligence.
Reporting to CEO Andrew Irvine, Steel will lead the bank’s digital, data and AI teams and initiatives as well as be accountable for design, customer onboarding and NAB’s digital unit ubank. He joins in January, subject to regulatory approvals.
Steel is currently managing director, customer experience at British giant Lloyds, overseeing 16,000 people responsible for consumer sales and service, digital, artificial intelligence, personalisation, branches, call centres and advisers.
Before that, he founded fintech Expertli and spent 16 years at CBA in executive roles including group chief digital officer.
Says Irvine: “Digital, data and AI are critical enablers for the delivery of our strategic ambition of customer-centricity and now is the right time to have an executive solely accountable and focussed on accelerating our progress in these areas.
“Pete’s deep experience in using digital and technology solutions to deliver for customers and driving commercial outcomes will be a valuable addition to my executive leadership team.”
Steel's appointment to the new role is another indication of the growing movement among banks to embed AI at the top of their leadership structures. His current employer Lloyds recently hired former AWS executive Dr Rohit Dhawan as director of AI and advanced analytics and added Aritra Chakravarty head of agentic AI and Magdalena Lis as head of 'responsible' AI.