The Post-Crisis CXO

Tags: asia/pacific, banks, economic crisis, financial services

The post-crisis landscape will be a much different place for financial services institutions. Will the banks and insurers that survive the downturn be managed by a new breed of leaders?

What will the post-crisis CXO look like? We ask this question as we evaluate a good list of up-and-coming CEOs, COOs, CFOs, CIOs. In the Asia/Pacific region in particular, we are seeing that the average age of CXOs in the financial industry has fallen quite significantly. This is something worth noting, considering that we are talking about an industry composed of many different kinds of organizations - from large international and regional players, to dynamic domestic champions and small, family-run organizations.

Several qualities will be common among the industry's new leaders, foremost among which is, of course, competency in risk management. We have seen over the past years how risk management executives have become more prominent, playing ever more critical roles in the organization. The crisis will serve to underscore the need for astute risk management skills. Some other "new" qualities worth noting: marketing savvy and a keen appreciation of technology as a value-creator.

We also believe that alongside the rise of these future leaders, the industry will witness an upsurge of today's next-generation banking initiatives such as cloud computing (and its derivations), Green IT, Web 2.0, social networking and its use in financial services and Generation Y banking. It will be interesting to witness how the rise of the future CXO and the rise of new technology will change the dynamics of our industry.