Dive Brief:
- Financial services company State Street appointed Brian Franz as its chief information officer. Tasked with differentiating the company's offering through "next-generation technology," Franz will report to Chief Operating Officer Lou Maiuri and gain a seat on the company's Management Committee, according to the company's announcement.
- Most recently, Franz served as chief productivity officer at Diageo, an alcoholic beverages company headquartered in London, where he led information technology, enterprise operations and business service functions. Prior to that, he was CIO at PepsiCo International and worked at AT&T and GE.
- Franz's background affords him knowledge in consumer and business-oriented brands, and he has experience in leveraging data and analytics to improve client outcomes, said Maiuri. He will join the company in January 2020.
Dive Insight:
Financial and tech priorities are woven closely in the current business landscape, as companies turn to technology to step above competitors.
For State Street, which competes in financial sector marked by a heated sprint toward innovation, the appointment signals a desire to have a CIO who can guide the company's stride toward modernization while answering to business priorities.
"The CIO of the future needs to be as much a business leader as a technology visionary, and we benefit from both with Brian," said Maiuri.
Franz will enter the picture after the conclusion of the Beacon project, a multiyear push to modernize infrastructure and introduce automation into the core business. In its latest 10-K filing, the company said total expenses for 2018 rose 9% year-over-year, citing a revenue recognition standard enacted in 2018 and higher technology costs.
State Street's IT and communications expenses jumped 14% in 2018 compared to 2017, and 6% in 2017 compared to 2016.
"Both increases were primarily related to technology infrastructure enhancements as well as additional investments to support growth, regulatory initiatives and Beacon related investments," the company said in the filing.
Taking on wide-spanning transformation projects and backing those initiatives with ample resources are two ways of side-stepping digital transformation mistakes, according to Gartner.