Deutsche Bank loses a CTO and other tech heads
Working in technology for Deutsche Bank is no easy task. The bank has long been wrestling with out-of-date systems, decommissioning applications en masse and doing whatever it can to reduce costs. Despite claims that the bad old days of the bad old tech are behind it, the integration of Postbank is going so badly that German regulators are installing a monitor and investment arm DWS has had to scrap a major IT project. At the same time, Deutsche Bank CFO James van Moltke saying there's "a lot of work to do" on the cost-front, and has indicated that infrastructure teams are where the cuts work will happen.
It's not clear whether this is why senior technologists are leaving Deutsche Bank, but there have been plenty of exits recently.
The most senior tech departure is Gordon Mackechnie, Deutsche's London-based CTO, who's leaving DB after seven years for the insurance sector. Mackechnie is joining $86bn insurance firm Chubb as its CTO in New York. He joined Deutsche in 2016 from RBS as head of group technology infrastructure and was promoted to CTO in September 2021.
Paul Rooprai is leaving Deutsche too. He spent 17 years at Deutsche and was most recently a managing director and CIO for market and enterprise risk management. Deutsche Bank will be looking internally for his replacement.
Lower level tech leaders are also disappearing. Naeem Saleem, head of IT for Deutsche Bank's wealth management team in the UK and Channel Islands, left this month with no apparent new destination.
There's no evidence that any of these people have been cut by the bank, but it's been apparent that, when there are costs to cut, technology is often impacted. At the very least, looking internally for Rooprai's replacement should help them save on an external's signing bonus.
Deutsche Bank declined to comment.
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