We were astonished when we looked at the figures from our Digital Transformer 2023 research. We had to double-check. We actually triple-checked – again – just to make sure. The results don’t tally with what we have heard or assumed about the market.
We reviewed 20 banks in the United Arab Emirates (here’s the list) working from various authoritative lists of regulated banks. We checked each of their websites to view their “Executive Management” pages and looked for someone with a job title that indicated technology leadership. We were ideally looking for a Chief Transformation Officer or Chief Digital Officer sitting at the top table.
When we didn’t find either of these profiles, we looked for a Chief Technology Officer or a Chief Information Officer.
As of this morning, we have tracked only 5 individuals in the United Arab Emirates sitting at the top table who are responsible for technology, digital or ‘information’. We only have 3 individuals listed on our Digital Transformer 2023 list for the United Arab Emirates. On top of this, we add a CIO at United Arab Bank and the CTO of neobank WIO, arriving at a total of 5.
This is a work in progress and we will update our Digital Transformer 2023 pages as we get more information.