Bank of Queensland poaches IAG tech chief Donna Vinci as CIO Julie Bale departs

Bank of Queensland has poached IAG's group chief information officer to run a newly expanded technology operations division at the company, in a restructure that will see its current CIO Julie Bale leave the company.

Announcing the change, BOQ said it had taken the decision to combine its IT, operations and project office teams in order to improve the bank's efficiency and ability to deliver tech initiatives. Ms Bale had been at BOQ since late 2012, and had recently overseen the extension of the bank's decade-long association with HP.

"Given these teams already work closely, it makes sense to combine them into one business area to better deliver the key projects we're working on," BOQ chief executive Jon Sutton said in the company's statement.

The bank had been perceived as something of a tech-laggard, having invested less aggressively than some of the Big Four banks in modernising its systems. A BOQ spokesman said digitisation or automation of the back office would be an immediate focus for Ms Vinci, with much of the bank still heavily paper-based.

"Donna Vinci is also really strong on digital disruption, and has dealt a lot with this at IAG, and that is going be a major focus for us and all banks," the spokesman said.

In thanking Ms Bale for her efforts at BOQ Mr Sutton called out the tech work required to manage the bank's move to a new headquarters and to modernise the way its employees used technology.

Like Ms Bale, Ms Vinci will report to Mr Sutton in her new role, which commences on July 27.