In some ways his own efforts and Mescher's have proved quite complementary, Crouch says. While there is still work to be done in the infrastructure area, much of the consolidation work undertaken under Mescher, including consolidating the Bank of New Zealand into the NAB's major Australian data centres, is already complete. Now Crouch has picked up the reins with some very new directions - most notably world-beating IT - in mind.

An Australian by birth, Crouch joined the NAB from AT Kearney/EDS in London, where in 1997 he assumed responsibility for the intersection of technology and financial services globally. By the time he left he was heading up the European Strategic Technology Practice, was a member of the EDS Global 100 Leadership Team, had worked with numbers of European banks and had been involved with a number of the major outsourcing deals signed by EDS. All that work built on previous extensive financial services experience acquired during years spent with Citibank and American Express; and extensive strategy experience gained during time spent with Arthur Andersen Consulting and Booz Allen Hamilton.

He says the experiences have positioned him well to achieve his aim of providing the bank with a world-class IT system. While he concedes achievement of that goal is a fair way off, he argues he is better equipped than many to deliver.

"Part of the challenge [of providing world-class technology] is to define what is world class, and who is world class and so on," Crouch says. "I spent more than five years working with CitiBank. I've spent two years consulting to American Express, where my clients were ING, ABN Amro. I spent time working with Barclays, with Lloyds, with most of the major European banks in my time . . . with Deutsche Bank, the Italians. I worked in Spain, France . . . I think I've covered reasonably well the territory around what most people would think of as some of the leading institutions. That clearly influences you a lot, in what you see as world class."

And that extensive experience has had another payoff too - Crouch has worked with Cicutto and other members of NAB's executive before during his time as the first Australian vice president of Booz Allan Hamilton. He says that prior knowledge has made his first few months on the job much easier, and paved the way for early success.

"It's surprising: I came along to the bank and I know a number of people here in the executive team because I had consulted to the bank and worked with some of them, and some of them I'd actually worked with in my previous Andersen life. From day one it was like being at home, so that enabled me to immediately get pretty much into where we were with technology, which I think has helped us," he says.

To help the business understand the new directions, he talks to the business whenever possible, paying personal visits and attending every workshop he can. His goal is also to talk to employees in bank branches, and even customers.a view to a changeCrouch has mixed views about whether it is better for organisations to turf out their CIO every couple of years or to keep the CIO for as long as possible in the interest of preserving corporate memory. Sometimes it can be extremely healthy for an organisation to change CIOs, he says: in some circumstances fresh blood can make all the difference. On the other hand, he can cite examples where outstanding CIOs have enjoyed significant longevity.

"There are advantages to both," he says. "The obvious advantage of coming in new is you can have a look at everything and challenge everything. Equally, when you're an incumbent CIO and you really get close to the business, you really get to understand the business very well and you build relationships, and you get to understand the culture of the organisation and you start to develop the history. I think at the end of the day it comes down to the individual CIO and how that person works as part of the management team of the time, and how aligned the CIO is with the agenda."

But there seems little doubt that by the time he joined the NAB in May fresh blood was just what the bank needed, given the angst over ISI.

Crouch rejects claims the selection of SAP lay at the root of ISI's problems. SAP works well at NatWest, Barclays and Lloyds, even though most Australian banks have opted for PeopleSoft. While some might argue one is marginally better than the other, he says he has no idea which one. But he implies the real problem with ISI is that the NAB failed to meet the challenge of getting the business to build required skills and having the business and technology tackle these projects in bite-sized chunks.