Placed a Chief Technology Officer into a tier-one GCC universal bank running a multi-year core banking modernisation programme, in 11 weeks.

The mandate

A tier-one GCC universal bank engaged us in 2025 to recruit a Chief Technology Officer. The institution had committed to a multi-year core banking modernisation programme alongside concurrent digital channel transformation and regulatory technology build, and required a CTO capable of leading all three workstreams simultaneously while reporting directly to the Group CEO and the board's Technology Committee.

The brief required deep core banking transformation experience, demonstrated track record running modernisation programmes at tier-one bank scale, and the institutional fluency to navigate a board with strong founding-family representation alongside professional management. The candidate also needed to operate credibly with the bank's regulators across multiple GCC jurisdictions.

JOH Partners ran the search on an exclusive retained basis. The CTO talent layer with tier-one GCC banking modernisation track record is narrow but well-mapped; the work concentrated on diligence, regulatory-context verification and stakeholder alignment with the founding family representatives on the board.

Our approach

The mandate ran across four phases.

01. Calibration

Two weeks. Joint calibration with the Group CEO, the Chair of the Technology Committee, and the founding-family board representatives. Output: a single-page mandate brief defining decision rights across the three workstreams and the explicit board-engagement cadence the CTO would carry.

02. Market mapping

Two weeks. The map ran globally across tier-one banking technology leaders, with weight on candidates with direct GCC operating experience or credible Asia-Pacific equivalents. International candidates were filtered for institutional fluency, not just technology track record.

03. Longlist research

Three weeks. Primary research weighted toward modernisation programme track record at scale. Two of the qualified candidates were currently inside tier-one regional peers; the regulatory-context filter compressed the pool further.

04. Shortlist and assessment

Four weeks. Five candidates presented with full assessment dossiers including modernisation strategy interview output. Final-round selection sequenced across the board's Technology Committee diary; offer signed at week eleven.

The outcome

The Chief Technology Officer took the seat in 2025 and remains in seat. The modernisation programme has progressed against the original timeline through the first six months of the appointment. The CTO has consolidated reporting lines across the three workstreams and established a single board-facing technology cadence, replacing the prior fragmented governance.

The team

The mandate was led by the partner heading our Financial Services and Banking practice, supported by a research director (full-time across eleven weeks), a market analyst (full-time across five weeks) and a delivery PM (full-time throughout). Total partner hours: approximately 360. Quarterly retention check-ins continue as part of our 24-month standing commitment.

Modernisation, digital channels and regtech, all running, all needing one CTO. The complexity wasn't technological, it was institutional. JOH calibrated for the institutional question first and the technology question second. That's why this worked.