NatWest Group has announced the appointment of Triona O’Keeffe as its new chief data and analytics officer.

O’Keeffe will join the firm in January 2027 and report to the bank’s chief information officer Scott Marcar.

She is currently chief information officer for data and analytics at the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) where she has spent over five years. She has also held chief information officer roles at Direct Line Group, senior leadership positions at Deutsche Bank, and spent five years working at Man Investment Group.

In her new role, O’Keeffe will lead an expanded data and engineering function. By bringing bank wide engineering together with data and AI, NatWest said it is creating clearer accountability, helping teams move faster from insight to delivery as well as creating more personalised services, better support and stronger customer relationships.

“Triona brings a depth of expertise across technology and financial services, which will be invaluable as we continue to strengthen our technology foundations and scale our use of data and AI to improve experiences for customers and colleagues,” Marcar said. “Data, AI and engineering are increasingly interdependent, and this move will make us better positioned to anticipate customer needs, provide more personalised support and build even stronger relationships with the people and businesses we serve.”

In June, NatWest launched a bank-wide AI and data ethics accreditation programme intended to provide training to all 60,000 of its employees. The scheme is happening in parallel with NatWest’s wider AI strategy, including the rollout of its agentic financial assistant Cora and investing £1.2 billion in tech, data, and AI transformation in 2025.

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