娇色导航

Cathy O'Sullivan?

Kia ora, welcome to 娇色导航Leadership Live New Zealand. I'm Cathy O'Sullivan, Editorial Director for Foundry in Australia and New Zealand. My guest today is Hamish Rumbold, who has just been awarded 娇色导航of the Year at the 2024 New Zealand 娇色导航Summit and Awards.

Hamish finished up recently as Kiwi bank's chief digital and technology officer after five years in the role. Tena koe Hamish, welcome to the podcast. Appreciate you being with us today. ? Hamish Rumbold?

Kia ora, thanks very much, and? look a real honour to be here. So thanks for taking the time. ? Cathy O'Sullivan?

Great stuff, and looking forward to hearing more about your role and more about you as a leader. So let's get into it. Tell us about some of the achievements of your team during your tenure at Kiwibank, and what you're most proud of. ? Hamish Rumbold?

Yeah look, I mean most proud of the team itself. I mean just outstanding talent, awesome culture.

You know, the team, when I left, was ranking in the top quarter global, globally, which, which was fantastic, and, you know, completely revamped all our ways of working, our structure and how we partner with the rest of the organization. So outstanding talent and leadership team there as well.

For the customer, you know, we've, we've made a really big impact. Launched numerous features to improve that customer experience, Apple Pay, Google Pay, which was unheard of for Kiwibank five years ago, lump sum repayments on mobile app.

A lot of features to stop, you know, to help customers not having to go back into branch, and being able to do it all remotely. So it's been fantastic.

And I think one of the most important improvements that we did was a 25 times improvement in customer, what we call 'customer impacted downtime', which is the amount of hours where our systems are unavailable, and we would have been one of the worst performing banks regionally, maybe even globally, back in 2019 and now we're the most stable bank, and that's really helped our Kantar corporate reputation indexes and putting us into number one position and our brand trust scores.

So that's been fantastic. I think, for Kiwibank and its long term sustainability, the biggest thing I'm proud of is over 50% of the tech stack's been rebuilt.

And we've gone from over 50% of the tech stack being unhealthy back in 2019 to 85% of the applications and infrastructure now fit for purpose, and 97% of our technical assets in full health.

So we've really made a massive change, built the new foundations that everything's been built on now today, and that's all during a time when Kiwibank's achieved outstanding results.

You know, we've achieved record results, consistent year on year, growth and and, and at the same time, improve the customer and team experience. So it's, it's been a it's been an awesome time, a very busy five years, though. ? Cathy O'Sullivan?

Indeed, some massive achievements there.

And certainly, you know, a very challenging time, I'm sure, in terms of, you know, you started before the pandemic, and so talk us through some of the big challenges that you and the team faced during that time when you had so much to do and how you overcame them.

? Hamish Rumbold? Yeah, it's interesting.

I mean, actually, the pandemic plays as a small part now in history for the challenges that we faced into but I think, you know, Kiwibank is 23 year old success story. It grew really, really fast. It's, it was organic growth.

And, you know, a lot of startup companies get to a point where they've, they've gone after growth, and they've grown so quickly that the tech stack becomes very unmanageable and before my arrival, the bank had about 11 CIOs in nine years.

So it was a significant underinvestment in technology, probably quite a lot of changes in technology strategies. And what that what that meant was there was an outdated technology.

As I said, over 50% of our tech stack, 450 applications, 1900 switches and servers were unfit for purpose and required remediation, and quite urgently. So that was the first challenge. The second challenge was cyber security risks.

Our maturity was probably the lowest in the industry, and you know that was really important for us as a board and executive team to address. And the third was, you know, we really didn't have a modern platform. We had no cloud capability, no API capability.

We didn't have that foundational tech stack to build on our domain and service orientated architecture. So we've put that in place.

And from a team perspective, they were all project funded, they were all caught in that cycle of firefighting and minimal documentation and knowledge base around with some really key individuals that were key people risk, if you like.

So what that felt like to the customer was a lot of outages, distrust of Kiwibank's ability to service them when they needed to be serviced, and the team sort of felt unheard over the years of actually addressing some of that tech legacy. So it was multi prong challenges.

There was the customer experience at the same time as the team culture, at the same time as reducing risk at the same time as rebuilding the platform for a more sustainable Kiwibank in the future. So yeah, lots of challenges.

And look, we've still got lots more to do, but we've made a made a good dent. ? Cathy O'Sullivan?

So 11 CIOs in a decade. And you know, as you said, things weren't in a good state.

So tell us then about how you got buy-in from the rest of the business and the board, and how you collaborated with the rest of the organization to get on board with what you and the team wanted to achieve. ? Hamish Rumbold?

I mean, that was just so important because it was an enterprise thing. There was a lot of just tech for tech stuff that we had to get on with but, but also that required prioritization.

So, you know, look, the first thing was establishing a common understanding of the scale of the problem we had at the organization to get that support. We created customer team journeys. We scored ourselves across those journeys. We scored all the technology for technical health and business fit.

We did that by asset by asset. It was data that never existed before. We conducted a comprehensive cyber and operational risk audit, so that gave us a baseline of where we were today.

We really encouraged a change in culture around not walking past issues, but actually fixing them and raising them. And if you're not getting support, then you know a culture of raising your hand and getting support from across the organization.

And we measured everything across that was impacting our enterprise objectives to demonstrate that it wasn't just a tech thing. It was actually these, if we didn't address these tech things, they were actually impacting other parts of the business as well, and their outcomes.

So under that common understanding was the first thing, the second one was prioritizing the back end and really just building education and understanding across the organization that the back end is just as crucial as the front end.

We can't just keep investing into digital experiences and and building on top of legacy. On top of legacy, we have to actually move to a more modern technology stack, to future proof for the organization, go faster for our customers.

And then the third was really fostering that culture of collaboration and moving away from siloed teams and bringing teams closer together as cross functional teams working on towards the same outcome.

So the response from the bank was remarkable and supported by Steve [Jurkovich] CE there and the executive team, you know, we all garnered the support of the board and, and it really was a big team effort, because most of the job was around some pretty tough prioritization calls.

And, you know, that's, that's something that we had to make together, because eventually one of us had to give up on something along the way. So you've given huge credit to your team.

So talk us through your approach then when you're building a team, and what qualities do you look for? You know you've spoken about the importance of that cross functional environment.

So how do you retain and attract talent, or attract and retain high performing talent that really thrives in that cross functional environment. Yeah.

I mean, look for me personally, when I'm interviewing people, I look for a really strong sense of purpose, that connection to why they want to work for Kiwibank, and a really strong customer centric approach and mind owner's mindset towards that, the people that can have that culture of openness, who can actually foster an environment where team members feel safe to speak up and genuinely care for one and one another's wellbeing.

You know, my leadership style is to lead with compassion and ambition, and I like to see both that owner's mindset, but also that compassion, compassion as well for people.

And then lastly, diversity and inclusion, which, you know, we've got a very diverse workforce, workforce in Kiwibank digital and technology, but there's still work to do, particularly in women. Instead.

Team, and so we did a lot of work around attracting women into into the team through AWS Cloud Up for Her, partnership with SheSharp, Raya, Hire Her and our intern and graduate programs.

So you know those three things, strong sense of purpose, owners, mindset, culture of openness and basically inclusion. ? Cathy O'Sullivan?

So I know as well that at Kiwibanks, you have things called learning nests or 'kohungas' and knowledge guilds. So can you explain a bit about the initiatives that you put in place there and how they contributed to the team's success? ? Hamish Rumbold? Yeah.

I mean, look, I think it's probably some context, like you said the bank with we organized ourselves, our teams into customer aligned, customer and team aligned squads, so the outcomes were clear to the squads.

They were grouped into domains and hubs, what we call domains and hubs, so groups of teams that were working towards a common a common goal or a common outcome for customers or teams, and partnering with other parts of the business in doing that.

Then we had practices where all of the people in those squads were cross functional. They came from different skills and practices. So there might be a designer, there might be an engineer, there might be an architect, there might be a product manager or delivery manager, etc.

So they came from the practices, and those practices were really focused on developing the skill sets, very diverse skill sets of each of those practices or sub practices in the craft, but also assuring that there's one way, right way across all the teams that we're doing things.

The kohungas were different, and they are a bit like knowledge guilds in, you know, agile language, but kohungas to us were self-forming learning nests. We wanted to generate a culture of learning, of always learning and learning forward.

And this is where the teams themselves created these opportunities to collaborate, to solve problems, to share best practices, to learn from each other, and to create that inclusive environment, you know, where there is a culture of continuous improvement, but also a culture of learning, so that people do get that opportunity to move into other roles if they see a fit for them, for themselves, and some other practice or capability.

? Cathy O'Sullivan?

So you spoke earlier about diversity being a huge part of your team's success, and some of the practical things that you've done at Kiwibank to get more women into your team.

Are there any other things that worked, or any other ways you think that we can get more minds of all kinds to consider IT as a career. ? Hamish Rumbold?

Yeah, look, I think the first thing is that IT is really diverse and different roles, like people don't realize that you have, I mean, sometimes, not always in the same department, but when you work in cross functional teams, there's designers, there's product managers, there's product owners, there's technical analysts, there's engineering, there's architecture, there's delivery.

So actually may I found when you when you explained that all the roles aren't necessarily always technical, there are pathways into technology that you don't need to have a technical background, but once you're in those cross functional teams, you actually start to learn a lot more about technology.

And that's, you know, you become a technologist. And so fostering the cross functional squads exposes those different roles and capabilities to different, you know, to each other's work, and people learn on the job.

I think the other one is actively supporting diversity in STEM through initiatives like what we talked about before, and the other one we found really useful was secondments from across the business, where you can bring people into the squads that know subject matter expertise from across the organization that can really enrich that squad, and they really get to know the team, and get to know the skills that that and they start to see places where they could play that they otherwise, you know, didn't realize was was an opportunity in technology.

So, yeah, I think it's broadening. It's broadening the pathways in for people, because once they get in, they learn other capabilities and skills. ? Cathy O'Sullivan? Yeah, absolutely.

I love hearing that from CIOs, when they have those stories of someone who might have worked in the in the warehouse or on the shop floor somewhere, and coming in and doing a secondment in the tech team, and realize it is something that they also can do.

And so just in summary, Hamish, how do you compare the Kiwibank that you joined five years ago day one with the one you left? ? Hamish Rumbold? Yeah.

I mean, look, it is truly unrecognizable. The banks become vastly better in serving our customers and our teams. You know, new branding. We're separated from New Zealand Post fully, culture's changd, talent capabilities change.

There's just been a big uplift right across the whole business from from all leaders and all departments. I guess what I would say is, though, is improvement is an ongoing journey, and credit must be shared with those who lay the groundwork before us, you know.

And the next person, the next me will will, no doubt, walk in and go, Okay, well, actually, we're here today, and we want to get to here tomorrow, and the new benchline or benchmark is, is where we are today, not where we were five years ago.

So, yeah, we've come a long way from five years ago, but that's the joy of business, you know, that is quickly forgotten where you were five years ago, and now you've got the new norm, and you've got to keep going. So I think, you know, honour the past.

We've, you know, I think we've done a good job in the last five years, but there's still more to do. ? Cathy O'Sullivan?

So looking ahead then to the years to come, what do you think will be some of the big challenges facing CIOs here in New Zealand? ? Hamish Rumbold?

Look, I mean cyber security, threat scams, you know, which to look after our customers. I think they're still right up there. It's relentless.

I do think a lot of organizations are in this situation where there's either been under investment in legacy technology, particularly how it's all hung together, the integration and and how the how to get out of that is quite complex.

You know, that's the work they've been doing over the last five years.

And if you don't, if organizations and CIOs don't address that, the back being the new front, you know, I think it's a real it's a big challenge, because there are going to be channels that emerge that we have never even thought of, particularly with AI, there's obvious ones like Siri and Alexa will become much more what I call headless channels, where you've got to expose your services and your in your products and services, and your technical services, your APIs and data, out to these organized out to these new channels to be able to interact with customers and be where the customer wants to be so unless that back end is sorted out and a significant investment in APIs and service orientated architecture, then I think that's a big risk.

I think there's a risk around connectedness and concentration risk.

So we saw Crowdstrike, you know, where actually, we're increasingly moving to SaaS and platforms, and there's a massive dependency that organizations have on the same vendors and and you know, the number of outages that could occur that are more global in nature or regional in nature will be interesting to to mitigate.

Data management, you know, if there's not poor, if there's poor governance and poor structure around your data, you know, your readiness for AI, I think, is you're just going to disadvantage your organization. Yeah, so those, those are some of the big ones.

I think we've still got some of the legacy problems, like traditional transitioning from projects to products, you know, shifting to building persistent teams so that we don't get into the cycle of fixing something and then going away and letting it die and then coming back later and trying to fix it.

And, you know, we want to actually just keep building sustainably through and stewarding our tech so it continues to, you know, new tech continues to eat old tech. So those are some of the big challenges I think, that most CEOs and CIOs are leaning into at the moment.

? Cathy O'Sullivan?

So for someone then who is, you know, an emerging ICT leader and aspiring 娇色导航who might actually have to be dealing with these challenges in the years to come what advice would you give them? ? Hamish Rumbold?

I think you know the back, the back is the new front. And what do I mean by that is customers want us to be where they want to be when they want us to be there.

And that's not always in the traditional channels that we've we've thought about, like mobile app, website, etc, etc, and so to to be ready for that, you know, the speed and the demand of the calls from an Apple Pay or someone like that or an AI like Siri will put pressure on to your infrastructure and your systems if you don't have a modern architecture and to be able to work with those channels in the future, I think it's really, really key.

So a good technical understanding of the back and how to architect well for the future, for the front and the headless channels, as well as your own channels. Second is, you know, actually, I think CIOs have changed, you know, it's not just about tech.

It's about understanding the customer. It's about being commercial and how the technology can come to to deliver those customer and teaming commercial experiences or outcomes.

And then I think, you know people leadership, because they're generally large, diverse teams of different skill sets, and there is generally more demand in the organization than supply, so you've got to be able to manage the enterprise leadership's supply and demand challenge, prioritization, taking people on my journey, creating roadmaps, aligning people behind those is really, really important.

? Cathy O'Sullivan? Indeed.

And look, so what's next for you in your career? Hamish, where to next? ? Hamish Rumbold?

Yeah, look, I've got a personal goal to help as many New Zealand and Australian companies.

I know Australia sounds a little bit cheating against New Zealand, but, but I want to help New Zealand and Australian companies generate an additional 10 billion of market cap in my lifetime through using technology and focusing on that customer and team experience and using some of the lessons.

I've made a lot of mistakes in my career, you know, helping people avoid those mistakes and and achieving great outcomes.

And the reason for that is because strong, successful New Zealand and Australian companies are essential, I think, to counter what is happening, which is global dominance by a few companies and you know, I think that fosters, continue to, fosters, foster innovation locally, meaningful jobs locally.

So yeah, where I can help do that, whether that's through executive roles or advisory or governance, which I'll do a bit more of now, I'm just looking for interesting challenges to help New Zealand and Australian companies thrive on a on a global stage, and and and try and help them not repeat some of the mistakes I've I've made myself.

? Cathy O'Sullivan?

Well, I look forward to catching up with you in the months to come and hearing about how you're going with the next part of your career. Hamish Rumbold, 娇色导航of the Year for New Zealand, thank you so much for joining us today. ? Hamish Rumbold? Many thanks, Cathy.