Adam Marciniak - CIO of PKO BP - Hungry for change: transforming banking sector CIONET

In this #LeadershipDeepDive episode, Adam Marciniak, CIO of PKO BP, the largest and oldest Polish bank, talks with Hendrik Deckers about how he has successfully led his IT team of over 2000 people through the digital transformation.

Throughout this conversation Adam talks about how PKO BP became leader in digital in such short time: his journey to the cloud, using the newest technologies in the field of automation and implementing the culture of trust and transparency.

"I believe in people”, Adam says and underlines the importance of team work.

Dive into this interview to learn and be inspired by Adam Marciniak!


Table of contents

01:22 | Introduction and Adam Marciniak’s background

Fascinated by technology since early childhood
Choosing banking sector was an opportunity to work with the best and also where the innovations takes place

05:13 | About PKO BP

Established in 1919, it’s the oldest and largest bank in Poland
10 million customers, 20% market share in all segments

07:15 | Banking sector: current challenges and drivers for change

Competition (fintech and bigtech)
Stricter regulations
Low interest rates
More demanding customers

11:02 | Meeting customers’ demands

Fully customer-oriented
Offering tailored services to the customers
Moving everything to mobile

13:55 | PKO BP: leader in going digital

Great mobile app (everyday 5.4 million active running of the app)
Example for other companies
Inside-out transformation
In parallel “Road to cloud Program” – first bank to go to hybrid cloud in such a structured way

16:45 | Cloud strategy

Establishing the Polish Cloud Operator which operates as intermediary between the global key cloud players and local companies

21:45 | Role of PKO BP in the Covid-19 vaccination process

Developing the central schedule system for the vaccine roll-out

23:48 | Reinventing workplace

90% of the headquarters employees work remotely

30:55 | Workforce and Adam’s IT team

Trusting people and not controlling
“Working in a bank is not cool, but working in a digital bank is very cool”


34:00 | Culture of trust & transparency

Collaboration between IT & business
Reorganizing the team, hiring new talents (100 – 200 people more very year)

39:40 | Workflow: automating the business

PKO BP implements all the newest ideas in terms of automation
RPA: over 100 robots
Citizens development: building the framework and delegating it to the Operations teams
Analytics & machine learning is the future

44:15 | Future of robots

Over 1 million conversation with PKO PB app chatbot in 1 year
AI is becoming more popular & common

46:35 | Managing new technologies

AI will support what we do & make our work more efficient
It will also be crucial for cybersecurity
RPA: UiPath robots are easy to use & standardize

50:08 | IT organization & Adam’s role as CIO

IT team of almost 2000 people
Traditional organization, yet flat structure: all have their responsibilities

53:30 | Adam’s leadership style

“I believe in the people”
Impossible to micromanage 2000 people so Adam has to trust

55:50 | MBTI profile: the Consul

“People master”
Relying on people

01:01:38 | Adam’s core values, passions & mistakes

“You have to be the good guy”
“Work on yourself and work with others”
“If you do something, you have to do the best”
Biggest mistake: trusting wrong people

01:10:28 | Advice for people starting out

Try to understand how the world & business are running and then drive the change
“Use the opportunity when you see it”