CommBank is on an exciting journey to reimagine banking, using technology to create exceptional and personalised experiences for its customers, communities and people. Designed to inspire this vision, BrighterTech – now in its third year – brought together thousands of people from across the bank to hear from a range of external thought leaders and CommBank subject matter experts, and interact with some of the latest tools and tech.

“At BrighterTech our people connected with external thought leaders and each other, embracing continuous learning to enhance our culture of customer obsession,” said Gavin Munroe, Group Chief Information Officer at CommBank.

“The insights and learnings from BrighterTech sparked new ideas that our people can apply today to harness the rapid acceleration of technology to deliver outstanding customer experiences.” 

Inspiring a brighter future

Designed to promote ideas, inspiration and elevated thinking, day one of BrighterTech brought an impressive line-up of thought leaders. We heard about the culture of customer obsession, the need for a growth mindset, and how the partnership of technology and teamwork can deliver extraordinary outcomes.

Christian Idiodi, Partner at Silicon Valley Product Group, opened the technology conference with a keynote on customer obsession and using data-driven decision making to create products customers love. 

Professor Linda Hill from Harvard Business School spoke of creating the culture and muscle for regular innovation and experimentation. Professor Jill Slay AM from the University of South Australia delivered an interesting perspective on the parallels between the security and threats associated with space technology, and the work of a financial institution. While Rob Pike, legendary software engineer, shared insights and reflections from his extensive career shaping the evolution of engineering.

The opportunity of AI was a big theme, with the CEOs of GitHub (Thomas Dohmke) and NEXTDC (Craig Scroggie) sharing their bold predictions for the future of engineering and AI. 

Embracing the opportunity of technology

Bringing the thought leadership back to CommBank, day two of BrighterTech celebrated and showcased some of the real-world examples where technology is being used to deliver better customer outcomes, from making it easier to apply for a business loan to protecting customers from cyber threats. 

The crowd listened, learned and asked questions. CommBank’s technologists shared how we're accelerating our adoption of GenAI across the bank to improve the experiences of our customers and people. “One of the amazing things about working at CommBank is you get to work with brilliant people and connect with brilliant people in the industry at the forefront of new technologies, like GenAI,” remarked Dan Jermyn, CommBank’s Chief Decision Scientist.  

After two days of ideas, inspiration and celebration, BrighterTech wrapped up with some closing words from Jane Adams, Executive General Manager Human Resources Technology: “The world of tech is evolving rapidly and skills is the new black,” she said. “It’s all about learning, mindset and embracing opportunities to gain the skills of the future.”

To learn more about technology careers at CommBank, please go to: commbank.com.au/about-us/careers/technology

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