Australia’s National Australia Bank (NAB) has announced the appointment of Pete Steel from Lloyds Banking Group to the newly established position of Group Executive for Digital Data and Artificial Intelligence.
In this role, Steel will report directly to CEO Andrew Irvine and will oversee the bank’s digital transformation, data strategy, and AI initiatives. His responsibilities will also include the design, customer onboarding processes, and NAB’s digital banking platform, ubank. Steel is expected to begin in January, contingent upon regulatory approvals.
Currently serving as the Managing Director of Customer Experience at Lloyds, Steel leads a team of 16,000 professionals who manage consumer sales and services encompassing digital platforms, AI integration, personalization, branches, call centers, and advisory services.
Previously, he founded the fintech company Expertli and spent 16 years at Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) in various executive roles, including Group Chief Digital Officer.
Irvine emphasized the importance of digital technologies, data, and AI in achieving the bank’s strategic goal of customer-centricity, stating, “It’s crucial to have an executive dedicated to accelerating our efforts in these areas.”
Steel’s recruitment reflects a broader trend among financial institutions to incorporate AI at higher levels of leadership. Notably, Lloyds has also recently strengthened its AI leadership by hiring former AWS executive Dr. Rohit Dhawan as Director of AI and Advanced Analytics, alongside Aritra Chakravarty and Magdalena Lis for roles emphasizing agentic and responsible AI, respectively.