Prior to joining SAP, Wainwright served in a number of senior sales management positions at Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC) where he represented the company’s mechanical engineering and product life-cycle management solutions for the high tech vertical.

Wainwright will speak at the upcoming SAP Financial Services Forum, June 23-24, London where he will be speaking on Digital transformation and Innovation in financial services.

Q: What does digital innovation mean to you?

A: Digital Innovation represents not only an opportunity but also a necessity to remain competitive in today’s market. Redefining how we do business is essential for creating a sustainable business model, generating new revenue streams and establishing a unique customer experience.

Q: What are the main challenges and opportunities that the financial services world faces as adoption of digital technologies becomes greater?

A: Digital markets move more quickly than traditional markets and can be disrupted more easily by both traditional and non-traditional competitors. Keeping the pace requires agility and the ability to respond to challenges and opportunities faster than business models of the past. Adapting to this rapid pace of consumption is critical enabling any organization to respond to new market opportunities and new customer needs.

Q: How can customer-led innovation be better ingrained within financial institutions?

A: Most financial services organizations are structured through a product-centric point of view. In order to truly harness customer-led innovation, organizations need to drive a cultural transformation to become customer-centric across their entire organization – from people, to process and technology.

Q: How can banks, financial institutions and insurance companies respond to competition from major consumer tech firms and new players who offer innovative digital and mobile financial services products?

Trust plays a fundamental role that I believe is unique in the financial services business. We trust banks and insurance companies with our homes, our investments, our retirement. Financial services organizations need to differentiate and innovate based on that trust to offer new sources of value to their customers that will enable them to increase customer loyalty and drive competitive advantage.

Q: Looking at the agenda, what do you believe some of the key takeaways will be from the SAP Financial Services Forum, 2015?

A: The event is a unique opportunity to bring together our global financial services customers, industry experts and our partners to debate and discuss the topic of innovation and transformation. All have a different perspective on how the financial services industry will need to transform in the digital age. I look forward to hearing from organizations that have already started this transformation such as ATB, Williams and Glyn and some of the new challenger banks.