The New Zealand Stock Exchange , NZX announced that it has onboarded Robert Douglas as its new Chief Information Officer, effective from 1st February 2021.
According to a recent press release, Robert Douglas, an experienced operations and program manager, has been recruited by NZX as its new Chief Information Officer. Located in Wellington, he will advance the IT functions across the NZX Group. This includes the programme of further investment from 2021.
Douglas brings strong leadership experience and develops strong partnerships with technology vendors. Further, his role will focus on the markets businesses, to increase the stability and resilience of the company’s technology framework. Additionally, he will drive engagement with market participants and other key stakeholders.
A Background Spanning Banking, Capital Markets and Payment Sectors
Prior to NZX, Douglas was promoted to Chief Operations Officer by Verifone in New Zealand. Over four years, he managed the delivery of solutions E2E and implemented governance with a focus on improving customer experience. There Douglas was responsible for seamless end-to-end delivery of payment services that processes over 30% of New Zealand’s EFTPOS transactions. Earlier on in 2013, he served as Head of PMO of Australia & New Zealand and as the Programme Director of Switch Migration, according to his LinkedIn profile.
From mid-2012, he fulfilled the role of Programme Director for Price Waterhouse Management Consultants. He successfully structured and planned a programme of work for a large NZ Government-owned entity.
Robert Douglas, Chief Information Officer, NZX. Source: LinkedIn.
At ANZ, where Douglas spent most of his career, he was Head of Business Enablement in Melbourne. Over a year, he enabled ANZ Global Shared Services strategic direction and transformed its operating model. Before his promotion, Douglas successfully completed the duties as Program Director as ANZ’s Institutional Bank. Moreover, from 2007 to 2009, he was Head of Operations, Institutional, Corporate and Commercial at ANZ National Bank.
Furthermore, at First New Zealand Capital he was effective as Head of Technology over one year.
Having returned to ANZ in 2004, he began as Program Director of Business Systems Integration in Wellington. After a year, he was promoted to Chief Information Officer of Markets Technology.
In addition, the National Bank of New Zealand recruited Douglas as its Manager of Wholesale and Satellite Systems in 2000. For four years, he triumphed in the role by improving its reach.
Though, his first position of employment was with ANZ as a Business Analyst in 1998.
A Few Words From NZX's CEO
Commenting on the new post, NZX CEO, Mark Peterson said: “Robert’s background spans the banking, capital markets and Payments sectors, and he has a proven track-record in leading operations and delivering change across critical and complex environments – dealing with real-time systems, systems integration, risk and security”.
Douglas said: “I’m really looking forward to joining a dedicated team that is at the very core of NZX’s business, with some great opportunities in front of us to pursue growth and support the wider capital markets ecosystem.”
“It’s exciting to have a very experienced technology leader joining us who shares our vision to grow New Zealand’s capital markets. Robert is no stranger to delivering complex, real-time technology services, and his expertise in leading large teams that deliver on their objectives is ideal for the work we have underway to evolve our technology platforms,” Peterson added.
