Financial institutions have kept their noses to the grindstone this year amid industry turbulence and technological disruption. 

To cut costs and streamline operations, banks looked to AI to enhance self-service consumer capabilities, improve backend operations and boost developer productivity. Similarly, banks looked to third-party vendors to advance their tech stacks. 

As banks balanced rate hikes, market turbulence and the evolution of AI, there remained one constant: a demand for ongoing digital transformation — and bank executives stepped up.  

Bank Automation News has created a list of bank technology executives that we expect to lead, innovate and tackle AI head on.  

This year’s executives to watch are: 

Dominic Cugini, executive vice president and chief transformation officer, KeyBank 

Dominic Cugini was appointed chief transformation officer at $193 billion KeyBank this year, and with a new title comes new digital strategy for the bank. In his previous role as the bank’s chief information officer, he focused on reducing friction while implementing robotic process automation, and looked to automation to improve the customer experience.  

In 2022, the bank selected Google as its cloud provider to leverage the tech giant’s data solutions and AI amid its digital transformation and that transformation continues today.  

Now, Cugini is leading the charge on transformation as the Cleveland -based bank continues to digitalize with mobile app updates, including redesigned visuals and navigation, increasing equipment spend and adding efficiencies to reduce costs.  

Tom Durkin, managing director, global product head of CashPro in global transaction services, Bank of America 

Tom Durkin, global product head of CashPro in global transaction services at Bank of America, is focused on CashPro innovation and creating consistent digital solutions across the $3.2 trillion bank’s global markets. CashPro is a banking platform used by more than 40,000 corporate and commercial clients. 

In the past month, the bank has rolled out enhancements to its mobile app and has added AI-driven capabilities to its commercial digital assistant, CashPro Chat. 

Durkin combines his drive for speed-to-market solutions with consumer-focused innovation as he continues to expand CashPro offerings. The next CashPro products to launch include CashPro Supply Chain Solutions, CashPro insights and CashPro Forecasting enhancements.  

Sherry Graziano, head of digital banking and contact centers, Truist 

Sherry Graziano is the head of digital banking and contact centers at $574 billion Truist, focusing on enhancing digital banking channels and digital customer interaction. Graziano served as the head of digital commerce at Truist before being promoted to her current role. 

With a continued focus on digital innovation within Truist, she looks to create seamless client experiences throughout the bank. Graziano leads her team with customer experience at the forefront, and was part of the launch of AI-powered virtual assistant Truist Assist and Truist Trade. 

Shahmir Khaliq, head of services, Citigroup 

Shahmir Khaliq was named head of services as part of Citigroup’s restructuring efforts, announced Sept. 13. Khaliq joined the $2.5 trillion bank in 1991 and most recently served as global head of Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions, a division of Citi’s Institutional Clients Group. Citi TTS increased technology spend 40% over the past two years to scale the platform. He previously served as a leader in markets and securities services, investor services, and as head of operations and technology. 

As part of Chief Executive Jane Fraser’s restructuring plan, the $2.5 trillion bank was reorganized into five divisions — services, markets, banking, wealth and U.S. personal banking — and leaders have been named for each of those business lines. BAN will be watching Khaliq and the other division leaders as Citi operates under the new structure and works to add efficiencies through AI and digital assets.  

Citi’s plans for AI include enhancing developer productivity and accelerating engagement with clients, Prag Sharma, global head of AI at Citi, told BAN during the “Global ideas for betting banking AI” webinar recently. 

Grace Lee, senior vice president and chief data and analytics officer, Scotiabank 

Grace Lee is the senior vice president and chief data and analytics officer at Toronto-based Scotiabank.  

In her role, she is investing heavily in AI — including looking to third-party vendors for technology, trusting citizen coders for innovation and looking to data foundations, knowledge management and ensuring that processes can be well documented with AI. 

She is focused on implementing AI in a way that fundamentally changes the way employees work, rather than looking to the technology for quick fixes, she said at Sibos 2023 in Toronto.  

“I do think that because of gen AI right now and people’s accessibility to this technology, we really do run the risk of people becoming so comfortable with the technology that they believe that everything that it does can be replicable and scalable and an enterprise,” she said, noting, “that’s simply not the case.” 

Deepak Paramanand, director of AI, JPMorgan 

Deepak Paramanand joined JPMorgan in 2021 as its director of AI research to help the $3.7 trillion bank leverage synthetic data technology for use cases ranging from lending to payments, along with developing AI-based products for commercial and retail banking.  

Paramanand, who previously developed AI-based tech at Microsoft and Hitachi, is working to help the financial institution implement AI throughout its operations. 

JPMorgan recently invested in low-code platform Cleareye.ai to digitize its documents. Cleareye.ai includes the ability to extract, validate and classify unstructured data. The $3.87 trillion bank continues to invest in modernizing its platform, moving operations to the cloud and investing in AI-related technology. 

Ian Povey, CIO, payments services and technology, NatWest 

Ian Povey is the chief investment officer of payments services and technology at NatWest Banking Group, tasked with providing payments technology across all payment schemes and global scheme connections for international markets.  

Povey joined $886 billion NatWest in 2021 and serves as a board member at interbank financial telecommunication organization SWIFT. 

When selecting third-party vendors, Povey focuses as much on the training and people as he does the technology, he told BAN at Sibos 2023.  

NatWest recently teamed up with Icon Payments Framework, a low-code, cloud-native platform that helps financial institutions improve their payments channels.  

Additionally, in September, the bank expanded its use of Amazon Web Services to start benefiting from potential use cases of generative AI, according to a NatWest release. AWS’ AI models allow the bank to identify risk and fraud within the payments business. 

BAN will be watching Povey’s upcoming fintech deals as the London-based bank continues to move its payments innovation forward.  

Kareem Saleh, co-founder and chief executive officer, FairPlay 

Kareem Saleh is the co-founder and chief executive officer of FairPlay, an AI-driven fintech that uses machine learning models to help financial institutions reduce lending bias. 

FairPlay flags biases as “model errors,” Saleh previously told BAN. The fintech is pushing for fairness and accuracy within AI-driven credit decisioning.  

In February, FairPlay and Splash Financial teamed up to offer unbiased loan decisioning — Splash Financial’s network of banks and credit unions include $16.9 billion First Tech Federal Credit Union and $13 billion Bethpage Federal Credit Union.  

FairPlay has raised $14.5 million in funding since it was founded in 2020, according to Crunchbase. 

As financial services continue to adopt AI, we will be watching to see which FIs integrate FairPlay’s solution into their ops to mitigate decisioning biases.  

Terrence Thomas, chief information officer, First Bank 

Terrence Thomas is the chief information officer at $12 billion First Bank, where he is responsible for the information technology, information security, business continuity planning and data management teams. He joined the bank in May 2022 and previously worked in technology at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.  

At the Bank Automation Summit U.S. 2023 in March, Thomas said, “We are just starting our road to automation.” 

During the 2022 rebuild of the bank’s technology stack, Thomas identified areas to automate and implement AI, including cybersecurity, digitalizing the account opening process and removing areas of friction in the customer experience. 

With Thomas deeper into his role at North Carolina-based First Bank, there has been more time for him to identify further automation efforts, and BAN looks forward to seeing what comes next. 

Jennifer Warren, head of market digital strategy, Barclays 

Jennifer Warren is the head of market digital strategy at global bank Barclays. She leads the $1.9 trillion bank’s digital transformation, including emerging technologies like AI. 

Warren is approaching AI with testing, partnerships and research at the forefront. She is also working to identify AI applications throughout the bank, such as utilizing AI to enhance the efficiency of Barclays’ developer teams.  

Additionally, Warren is focused on training and ensuring her team has the right skills to approach AI innovation, an effort she will continue as she experiments with AI. 

Barclays has been looking to increase its investment in technology and automation to improve customer experience and reduce costs. In the second quarter, the bank reported a 6% year-over-year increase in operating costs at $4.4 billion, largely driven by continued investment in talent, systems and technology. 

Joanne Wyper, executive vice president of commercial banking digital and operations, Citizens Bank 

Joanne Wyper is the head of commercial banking digital and operations at Citizens Bank, where she is focused on improving the bank’s commercial banking digital channels. Wyper joined $223 billion Citizens Bank in 2008 as the head of commercial loans.  

In the fourth quarter Citizen’s commercial banking arm expects to launch Digital Butler, an AI-driven virtual assistant for commercial banking clients, on its mobile app — bringing AI into the bank’s commercial business. The bank is also exploring adding generative AI capabilities Digital Butler in the coming months. 

There are nearly 30 additional projects the group is working on over the next 18 months to improve digital interactions with the bank, Wyper told BAN.