Pieter Vorster is the GM CSR & Chief Data Analytics Officer at Commonwealth Bank, one of the largest companies in Australia. He is an internationally recognized leader in the data analytics space with over 20 years of experience in industries like retail, wealth, corporate and investment banking, financial services, insurance, etc.

In this episode, Pieter explains how he considers his real data journey started in 2013 when, with 2 colleagues, he had the opportunity to travel the world and meet with people who could help them in applying digital data design into corporate banking. Then, he talks about how disruption within the organizations, though sometimes avoided, is necessary to create better solutions for the customers. He believes a key guiding principle should be to benefit the client, and that transforming strategies and technologies can only take place at the same pace as social transformation.

He provides his insight on the roles of CDO and CAO, both are positions he has held at different companies,  and how he sees that these may evolve in the future.

Stay tuned to learn more about Pieter’s exciting journey and his ability to combine customer perspectives with data, AI and digital business models in a unique and effective way to get results for organizations.

Quotes:

• “The moment you need to get agreement from everyone, mediocrity around consensus will apply”
• “If you’re just trying to move money from one part of the business to another part of the business you’ll never succeed”
• “I tried to convince some actuaries to learn about computer science and programming”
• “The banks have got lots of data, lots of toolsets, people just don’t know how to use them”
• “Logic never wins arguments, emotions win arguments”

Read the full episode summary here: Ep 128

Enjoy the show!