Dive Brief:
- Moody's hired Oppenheimer Funds SVP of Infrastructure Mona Breed as CIO, effective October 15, according to a company announcement in September. Current CIO Tony Stoupas will remain with Moody's through the end of the year.
- Breed will take a top spot in Moody's C-suite, reporting directly to President and CEO Raymond McDaniel, as she oversees the company's global technology infrastructure and programs.
- Breed will be the second woman in Moody's current senior management team, joining Chief Human Resources Officer Melanie Hughes.
Dive Insight:
As big tech provisions more financial services, digital ecosystems in financial institutions are creating better user experiences, driving down costs and offering innovative features, such as advanced artificial intelligence applications and intelligent solutions, according to a Moody's report from September on the threat of big tech disruption.
The competitive threat from big tech means incumbent financial institutions are investing heavily in digital transformation and new technologies, a move viewed as "defensive" in competitive areas such as retail services, according to the report.
In addition to disruption the financial institutions Moody's provides credit ratings for, big tech is also forcing Moody's to retool its technology portfolio.
Moody's Analytics, the company's nonrating subsidiary, provides technology and financial intelligence tools for businesses, including software as a service solutions for public, private and hybrid clouds. Earlier this year, for example, Moody's made its regulatory compliance and balance sheet management tools cloud-enabled and launched other cloud offerings on AWS.
The company's strategy moving forward is to launch products that are "fully optimized for the cloud," according to Andrew Bockelman, managing director at Moody's Analytics, in a company announcement in April.
