Lloyds Banking Group has hired an executive from Amazon Web Services as its first director of artificial intelligence andd analytics.
In this newly established role, Rohit Dhawan will lead the UK bank's AI Centre of Excellence , bringing together experts in data ccience, behavioral science, ML engineering, advanced analytics and AI ethics. He will be responsible for shaping the overall AI, ML and advanced analytics strategy and promoting the adoption of AI enabled products and services for the bank's 27 million customers.
Rohit, who holds a PhD in artificial intelligence from the University of Sydney, joins from Amazon Web Services, where he served as the head of data and AI strategy across the Asia-Pacific region. In this role he spearheaded a number of strategic developments, including the integration of AI into customer and operational processes and establishing a multi-disciplinary data and AI function.
Ranil Boteju, chief data and analytics officer at Lloyds Banking Group says: “Rohit’s appointment is a significant boost for the strategic development of AI technology and capabilities within Lloyds Banking Group, with his wealth of experience delivering technology and change, at pace and scale. Rohit will work across the business to further integrate AI outcomes into business priorities, helping us to scale AI in a consistent way and deliver against our strategy.”
Lloyds is currently trailing over 50 use cases for AI across the business, including increasing the speed of support, quality of chatbot tools and detecting early warning signs of fraud.
So far this year the bank has recruited another 1,500 technology and data specialists, taking the total to more than 4,000 over the past two and a half years.
Says Dhawan: "I’m excited to work for an organisation undergoing one of the largest transformations in financial services and look at how we can transform the way we use data and tech to respond to changing customer needs."