The 2014 Tech 50: David Gledhill

July 08, 2014

< The 2014 Tech 50: Moving Out of the Lab and Into the Cloud

David Gledhill

Head of Group Technology and Operations

DBS Bank

Last year: 45

DBS used to be spelled out as Development Bank of Singapore. Digital Bank of Singapore might be more apt these days. “In the past 12 months, we have been focusing on innovating to shape the future of banking,” says David Gledhill, head of group technology and operations. “We need to truly understand what our customers need and want.” For starters, DBS formed a digital banking organization and earmarked 200 million Singapore dollars ($160 million) over three years to “better integrate banking into our customers’ lifestyle.” This high-tech thrust, designed to “up the ante on innovation,” is “aligned across the businesses as well as support units of the bank,” explains Gledhill, 52, who joined S$402 billion-in-assets DBS in 2008 after heading Asian investment banking operations for JPMorgan Chase & Co. In April, DBS hired MasterCard Labs vice president Neal Cross as chief innovation officer to accelerate what Gledhill terms “mapping digital engagement.” Related moves this year include working with IBM Corp.’s Watson technology to develop big-data analytics, and formation of a joint R&D lab with the A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research. “We are seeing competition from the likes of Alibaba, Baidu, Google, PayPal and telcos,” Gledhill says. “The rules of the game are changing.”

The 2014 Tech 50