Media releases
Appointment of Chief Information Officer
24 June 2026
Westpac CEO Anthony Miller has announced the appointment of Richard Heeley as Chief Information Officer, commencing later this year.
Heeley is currently CIO, Banking and Financial Services at Macquarie Group and previously worked at the UK’s Nationwide Building Society, Barclays and JP Morgan Chase.
Mr Miller says the appointment will accelerate Westpac’s technology agenda, overseeing infrastructure, cyber security and engineering. He’ll work in close partnership with UNITE, Data, Digital and AI teams across the bank, led by Peter Herbert and Andrew McMullan.
“Richard is a proven technology leader who understands how to lead large-scale digital transformation in retail banking. He’s helped build and lead a successful digital bank and we look forward to welcoming him to Westpac,” Mr Miller said.
“Richard has deep experience building and running critical platforms at scale, and he knows what it takes to simplify systems, improve resilience and deliver a first-class digital banking experience for customers.
“Richard will lead the next phase of Westpac’s technology transformation, building on recent progress to modernise core systems, lift resilience and strengthen the bank’s cyber and technology capabilities.”
Richard Heeley said: “Westpac has strong foundations and a clear plan to simplify and modernise the bank. My priority is taking an already great customer offering and making it the best digital banking experience in the market. I’m excited to be joining.”
Heeley will replace outgoing Chief Information Officer Scott Collary, who will retire later this year, as previously announced.
About Richard Heeley
Richard Heeley is an executive with deep experience building modern, engineering-led retail banking platforms and delivering large-scale retail core banking transformation programs. Since 2016, as CIO for Banking and Financial Services at Macquarie Bank, he led the end-to-end technology organisation across retail, business and wealth banking, playing a central role in the development of Macquarie’s real-time, cloud-native banking platform.
Prior to this, Richard led a large-scale core banking transformation program in the UK for Nationwide Building Society, where he was IT Transformation Director from 2010 to 2014. Earlier he also worked in technology and program management at Barclays and JPMorgan Chase, UK.
Richard combines strong engineering orientation with delivery discipline, having built high-performing technology organisations centred around modern engineering practices, DevOps and continuous delivery.
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