Video | Modernizing Financial Services: What Successful CIOs Get Right

with Dan Stummer

In today’s rapidly evolving financial services landscape, the role of the CIO has become increasingly complex — and critical. As the pressure to modernize intensifies, CIOs must navigate a delicate balance: enabling innovation while maintaining control, aligning with business value while staying compliant, and modernizing legacy systems without compromising operations.

In this video, Protiviti’s Dan Stummer explores what sets successful financial services CIOs apart. The answer isn’t simply strategy, technology or leadership — it's alignment across all three.

The Modernization Gap: Velocity vs. Viability

CIOs today face a widening gap between what’s being asked of them and what their current operating models can realistically deliver. Financial institutions must simultaneously deliver speed and stability, innovation and governance — all while managing legacy infrastructure, fragmented tools and stretched resources.

As demands grow, CIOs are increasingly being asked to fund change initiatives from operational budgets — shifting the paradigm from “Run and change” to “Change within run.” This evolution requires smarter prioritization, platform consolidation and clear ROI tracking tied to modernization outcomes.

The Winning Model: Integrated, Commercial-Focused Modernization

Top-performing institutions no longer view modernization as a cost center or a compliance checkbox — they treat it as a commercial engine. These CIOs:

• Tie tech investments directly to measurable business value
• Operate with integrated team models and governance frameworks
• Embrace 0-based technology budgeting and cross-functional investment councils
• Leverage trusted partners not just for tools but also for acceleration.

Strategic ecosystems — including players like ServiceNow, Microsoft, AWS and FIS — are enabling banks to scale transformation quickly and build resilient operations. But tools alone aren’t enough; success hinges on orchestrating platforms, partners and people with governance that keeps pace.

What Leading CIOs Prioritize

Modernization is not about silver bullets or chasing the latest trend. Leading CIOs focus on building sustainable momentum by:

• Reskilling and repurposing existing teams with future-ready capabilities
• Simplifying operating models for repeatable, scalable execution
• Balancing build-versus-buy decisions for speed and differentiation
• Aligning every tech investment to a clear business outcome.

At Protiviti, we help financial institutions navigate this complexity with clarity — connecting strategy to execution and innovation to governance. Modernization is not the end goal. Value realization is.

The Modern CIO Dilemma

In this exclusive series from Protiviti, explore quick-hit insights and executive perspectives on the evolving role of the CIO in financial services. The Modern CIO Dilemma distills key conversations into video briefings and podcast episodes. You’ll hear directly from finance transformation leaders on how CIOs are tackling today’s most pressing issues — from regulatory uncertainty to payment modernization. Whether you're rethinking your data architecture, implementing AI responsibly or preparing for the next compliance shift, this series brings clarity to complexity — fast.

Watch the series