Forbes The CIO’s First 100 Days Series: Kim Hammonds

The Path To Success For Deutsche Bank’s CIO And Global Co-Head Of Technology And Operations

by Peter High, published on Forbes.com

04-21-2014

The chief information officer role is a complicated one for anyone who holds the title. It is even more complicated for an executive who is new to an industry, as he or she needs to learn a new company and industry, while also learning about the people, processes, and technologies that the IT department are responsible for. When she joined Deutsche Bank in November 2013, Kim Hammonds added to this complexity, as she not only joined financial behemoth, Deutsche Bank, her first foray in financial services, but she also added the responsibilities as Co-Head of Technology and Operations for the bank while also moving to the UK from the United States.

Hammonds has the killer combination of engineering degree as an undergraduate, as well as an MBA. Many of those executives featured in the CIO-plus and Beyond CIO series have had this combination, and these two sets of disciplines have served her well through the variety of roles she has had in companies as diverse as Ford, Dell, and Boeing prior to her current appointment, and she has never thought of the role of CIO merely as a technology role.  Rather, she has always run IT as a business discipline, making the transition to the broader set of responsibilities that she currently has more logical for her to entertain.

(This is the 13th article in the “CIO’s First 100 Days” series. To read the prior 12, including interviews with the CIOs of Intel, Caterpillar, Time Warner, Johnson & Johnson, and J. Crew, please click this link. To receive notifications regarding future articles in the series, including interviews with the CIOs of AmerisourceBergen and Viacom, please click the “Follow” link above.)

Peter High: Kim, you now have a role that I have referred to as “CIO-plus”, as you are the Global CIO and Global Co-Head of Technology & Operations at Deutsche Bank DB -0.32%. Can you describe your responsibilities?

Kim Hammonds: I am the Global CIO for Deutsche Bank. This includes running all aspects of IT, including applications, data centers, content in the data centers, end-user computing – all traditional content that a Global CIO would be responsible for. In addition to being in charge of the traditional aspects of IT, I am also responsible for the bank’s technical innovation – such as mobile capability and applications for our customers – helping us understand how customers use mobile banking and ultimately becoming a more digital bank so that we can take advantage of the latest developments in digital technology.

My other responsibilities relating to the Global Co-Head of Technology & Operations role cover the operational side of the business. This encompasses various processes, including global trade execution, facilitating customer payments and operations for the running of the bank.

Additional topics covered in the article include:

• These are still early days in your time at the bank. How did you organize yourself in your first 100 days?
• How has your thought process in the first 100 days been similar or different from previous first 100 day periods at other companies?
• There has been a long dearth of female talent in top engineering programs. What inspired you to study engineering as an undergraduate at Michigan?
• Your current role is one I refer to as the “CIO-Plus” role in that you are responsible for the functions of a CIO but have also taken on the responsibilities of, in your case, operations with the Global Co-Head of Technology & Operations. What advantages do you see in being a CIO-plus versus carrying the title of just the CIO?
• Please could you briefly summarize how you and your colleague Jim Turley split the Global Co-Head of Group Technology & Operations roles?
• What trends particularly excite you as you look out three or five years?

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