Operational Efficiency in Financial Services

Alan Millard

Chief Operating Officer, Hiscox UK

Biography

As Chief Operating Officer for Hiscox UK, Alan’s prime goal is to make sure that the business runs simply and efficiently. A key part of Hiscox’s success relies on their ability to rapidly respond to the market and constantly develop and improve the way services are provided.

Most of his career has been to do with managing change. Prior to Hiscox, Alan was Group Head of Technology Services at SABMiller (2nd largest global brewer). His career has been in an unusual mix of roles in financial and pharmaceutical services - at JP Morgan as a VP in Mergers & Acquisitions; at Deutsche Bank as a Director of Information Security; and strategy and change management roles in Standard Chartered Bank, AIB, and GlaxoSmithKline. He’s run teams and services around the world and worked in New York, North Carolina, Poland, Malaysia, India, and Germany.

John Knowles

Director, IT and Offshore Operations, Allianz

Biography

John has spent the last 10 years at Allianz, initially as Director, IT and then building up an off-shore captive operation which is now a significant part of the Allianz Insurance operations. As a member of the Allianz SE International IT Committee John also has a perspective on the Group’s global deployment and sourcing of IT services. John previously held senior roles in IT and Business Operations in UK and Europe.

Sean Gilchrist

Managing Director, Digital Banking, Barclays Bank

Biography

Sean Gilchrist is the Managing Director of Digital Banking for Barclays UK Retail Bank.

Digital Banking includes Internet, Mobile and Self-Service Banking and drives the commercial and operational channel performance and development of the services offered. As well as the sales, customer experience and growth, Sean is responsible for the operation of the services and development of the channels and their functionality.

Recognising the greater role digital banking has to play in Barclays multi-channel offering Sean has driven an agenda of growth and change. Results have already been seen with the introduction of improved online security measures making Barclays one of the safest places to bank online. At the same time Sean has doubled the Digital Banking top line and driven the development of Barclays mobile banking service.

Sean has been with Barclays since 2002, initially with Barclays Wealth where he established the Online Banking team driving the commercial performance and development of the Barclays International Online Banking offering. Prior to that he worked across a rang of "blue chip" financial services companies where he specialised in sales and distribution, e-services and transformational change management.

Following University, Lloyds Bank is where Sean started his career in Finance in 1986 completing their Management Development Programme. He is married with three children.

Paul Kenmir

UK Life Chief Operations Officer, Zurich Financial Services

Biography

Paul Kenmir is currently Chief Operations Officer in UK Life.

He joined Zurich in 1984 as an IT Systems Consultant. He has held a variety of roles in IT, Marketing, Sales, e Business, Business Change and Outsourcing. He was instrumental in the delivery of significant improvements in the UK e Business capability.

As Chief Operations Officer, Paul is responsible for the UK Life Operations, both retained and outsourced, Business Controls, Business Change and Outsourcing relationships. In addition Paul is the UK Life owner of the relationship with IT and Shared Service functions. The primary aim is to deliver exceptional customer service in the most efficient way.

Bernard Croisier

Director Organisation, Dexia Group

Biography

Bernard Croisier, 40, has a Business Administration degree from Université of Liège (Belgium) and a Ph.D. in management science from Université of Liège and University of California at Berkeley (USA). From 1999 to 2004, he joined McKinsey & company where he helped a number of companies on strategic and operational optimization issues in the banking and logistics sectors. He joined Dexia Bank in 2005, as Director of Organization department, where he leads transversal optimization initiatives in operations, distribution, facilities management and support functions, using lean as well as added-value analysis techniques. He also heads the PMO department in charge of selecting and tracking large IT transformation projects.

Richard Fraser

General Manager, Retail Banking EMEA, FIS

Biography

Richard began his retail banking career as a management trainee with Northern Rock in the 1980's and joined the Nottingham Building Society/Bank of Scotland joint venture which launched Britain's first home-banking service in 1984. In the 1990's he first worked for FIS in sales and marketing roles before joining IBM to head its newly formed core banking solutions unit. Rejoining FIS in 2009 he is responsible for professional services, support and service delivery for the company's largest European clients.

He completed his banking examinations in 1980, was awarded the Northern Rock prize for Development & Marketing and was runner-up in the 1982 Birmingham Trophy.