Gareth Wilson

Digital transformation has been sweeping across industries for the past decade. But the last two years have seen extraordinary changes ushered in as the global pandemic resulted in millions of companies shifting their focus to online services. 

The financial markets were, in the main, already in the transformational zone. But despite this, support and guidance as well as robust leadership, has been essential in maintaining stability in the space as transformative innovations have been introduced. 

Technology has played a leading role in bringing the finserve and banking industries to their online roles, and after servicing almost 30 years in the IT industry, Wilson brings a wealth of knowledge to the position that sees him lead consulting support to some of the world’s biggest financial institutions. 

He says, “I would say my background is probably heavily transformation-focused. And certainly what we've seen over the course of the last 20 years in financial services and in banking, and probably in society in general, is the increasing relevance and importance that technology plays in the context of operating models and in the context of customer and client engagement.”

Wilson explains that although there's a very strong technology element to his experience and to the team at Capgemini, the primary focus is finding ways to leverage that for transformation. Today, they are busier than ever before as the pandemic has driven extraordinary changes. 

Strategic partnerships and goals

Alongside agility, comes the question of resilience. If industries across the board have learned anything over the past two years, it’s that when a crisis hits, they must be ready to manage it. And this needs to be facilitated across multiple levels.  Technology is stepping up and providing those options.

Wilson says, “We have enabled some of that resilience naturally through the development of technology. Within the industry its partly being promoted by the regulators. But we're seeing a greater level of comfort with the kind of public cloud propositions that are enabling the banks and the financial services industry to take advantage of that.”

He continues, “COVID-19 has been a very good example in terms of companies having the ability to move an operation or a team from working in a centralised manner to a very distributed manner.”

Wilson adds, “I think it's really important at a leadership level that the banks, the leadership, and the executive team have that resilience very much in the forefront of the strategy and the design and the culture for their organisation.”

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