Microsoft has appointed its former retail banking strategist Koen Van den Brande as chief technology officer (CTO) at its Emea financial services division.
Van den Brande re-joins Microsoft after a stint at India-based Polaris where he was president, product group and CTO. At Polaris Van den Brande was responsible for managing a team of 800 people consisting of product managers, architects, software engineers and implementation services teams.
Prior to this he was retail banking strategist at Microsoft's Emea financial services division.
He originally joined Microsoft in November 2003 following a 16 year career at Misys where he held roles including director of marketing and product strategy for retail banking.
He was also product director, universal banking at Misys subsidiary MKI where he was responsible for building the vendor's branch automation system.
Prior to this he ran the treasury team for a group of banks, at BankorpData, South Africa.
In his new role Van den Brande will be responsible for working with Microsoft customers, partners and financial standards bodies, as well as the vendor's product groups, on defining and executing its technology strategy across Emea.