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Leeds Building Society names Steven Croke as chief information officer. He brings more than 30 years' experience delivering major technology transformations in financial services. Leeds Building Society has appointed Steven Croke (pictured) as its new chief information officer (CIO), subject to regulatory approval. He brings more than 30 years' experience delivering major technology transformations in financial services. Croke joins the society from Gartner, where he was most recently VP executive partner of the research board, advising CIOs across a range of industries. Prior to that, he helped develop a global banking platform at HSBC and led the modernisation of RBS's core banking estate. Croke will join the society in December, subject to regulatory approval. He will work closely with chief operating officer Rob Howse during a transition period, ahead of Howse's departure from the society at the end of the year. Annette Barnes, chief executive officer at Leeds Building Society, said: "The Intermediary is delighted to welcome Steven to Leeds Building Society. "With more than 30 years' experience delivering major core banking transformations in financial services, he has a clear focus on using technology to improve outcomes for members and colleagues. "Technology is central to how we deliver on our purpose of putting homes within reach of more people. I look forward to working with Steven as we continue to invest in resilient, secure and straightforward services and build the capabilities we need for the future." Croke said: "I'm really pleased to be joining Leeds Building Society. "The Society's strong heritage, member-led values and commitment to helping people achieve their ambitions provide a great foundation for the future. "I'm particularly excited by the scale of the technology modernisation underway and the opportunity to help shape that journey, combining the Society's strengths today with the technology, data and digital capabilities needed for tomorrow."

Three new hires strengthen Extel's global sales team. September 28, 2026, 11:00 GMT As Extel continues to evolve under new ownership, this is an exciting milestone for the business. We're delighted to see the new talent joining the organisation" - Steve Carroll, Managing Director - Extel LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, September 28, 2026 / EINPresswire.com / - Following investment from Triple Private Equity, Extel, the leading provider of market sentiment in capital markets for over 55 years, is expanding its global sales team to meet growing client demand across the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific. >>>> Ursula Kizy, Sales Director: Kizy makes a welcome return to Extel, having previously led Corporate Research for the Americas, where she worked closely with hundreds of corporate clients across the region. Ursula is based in Michigan and brings deep industry and markets knowledge, along with familiarity with Extel's research methodology and client base, built up during her earlier tenure with the firm. Ursula will be working with both new corporate and sell-side clients. >>>> Liam Knox, Account Director: Prior to joining Extel, Knox held positions at Netskope and LSEG/Refinitiv, where he worked with corporate issuers and sell-side financial institutions across a range of strategic and commercial initiatives. He holds a B.S. in Business Administration, with a concentration in Finance, from Southeast Missouri State University and brings experience across technology, market data, and capital markets. At Extel, Liam is responsible for managing and expanding relationships with sell-side firms across Europe and the Americas. >>>> Eldar Gainutdinov, Sales Director: Gainutdinov joins Extel from Gartner, bringing extensive experience in sales and client development across Asia. His experience also includes leading APAC sales for Infrastructure & Energy Data at Euromoney Institutional Investor, working with infrastructure, financial and government organisations. Based in Hong Kong, Eldar will focus on Asia Pacific new sell-side and corporate clients, to help expand Extel's presence and client relationships across the region. Steve Carroll, Managing Director of Extel said "As Extel continues to evolve under new ownership, this is an exciting milestone for the business. We're delighted to see the new talent joining the organisation, and it reflects the pace at which we're building out our capabilities with new data sets, analytics, partnerships and AI. We remain focused on creating the optimal customer experience as we do." About Extel For over 55 years, Extel (formerly Institutional Investor Research) has been a trusted leader in proprietary benchmark research and rankings. Providing independent feedback on all three sides of the investment community, Extel is the premier choice for validating qualitative market intelligence. With a global presence spanning Europe, Emerging EMEA, Asia Pacific, North America, and Latin America, Extel continues to set the standard in independent market insights. Media contact David Bowen, Marketing Director, Extel [email protected] Legal Disclaimer: EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above. You just read: September 28, 2026, 11:00 GMT EIN Presswire's priority is author transparency. We do our best to weed out false and misleading content. The content above is the sole responsibility of the author who makes it available. If you have any complaints, kindly contact the author above. Mr D E Bowen

How geopolitics are forcing businesses to rethink their technology-sourcing strategies. September 28, 2026 Business 101 tells Supplychainbrain that a corporation's path to profit is through prioritizing efficiency and controlling cost. Time to rethink that dictum. Global supply chains are quickly learning that not every decision they make about sourcing, production and distribution should be determined by upfront cost - not at a time when geopolitical strife is upsetting trade patterns everywhere. That argument was put forward by Yanni Karalis, managing vice president at Gartner, at the consultancy's 2026 Procurement Conference in San Diego earlier this month. Karalis said the eruption of wars and trade disputes around the world is especially forcing businesses to reshape their technology-sourcing strategies in support of procurement and other supply chain functions. "Tech access is becoming conditional," he said. "It's not something we were thinking about. [Now it] depends on geopolitics and national security, not just market forces." "Conditional" access to technology that once was easily sourced "produces new risk, affecting innovation and competitiveness," Karalis added. And that's forcing organizations acquiring technology to prioritize business resilience and continuity over cost efficiency. Data sovereignty - the legislative framework and governance that pertain to data regulation, as well as the question of where in the world data must be stored and processed - is under threat. "Trust is fundamentally broken," Karalis declared. "Who will protect your data sovereignty? The bad news is, no one will." All of this has companies "paralyzed by uncertainty" as they agonize over which tech providers, especially cloud services, to rely on. Once it was a best practice to work with the smallest possible number of suppliers, and that still makes sense from a financial and governance perspective. Increasingly, though, tech acquisition is becoming subject to changing government trade policies, causing traditional sourcing rules to break down. "Assuming that global providers bypass political borders is outdated," Karalis said. "Ownership and legal obligations now heavily impact sourcing." And contracts with providers, no matter how detailed, are no longer sufficient to mitigate risk from export controls and other government restrictions. Karalis identified three systemic issues currently affecting data security and supply chain tech acquisition, with proposed solutions for each: The problem: Conditional access to U.S. technology. Barriers include export controls, licensing restrictions, sanctions and national security exceptions. They're creating new problems that traditional vendor management alone can't solve. The solution: Build sourcing optionality. That means having at hand prequalified alternatives that can be readily activated when conditions change. To make that possible, businesses need to create data "portability" with easy substitution of supporting tech providers. "You cannot build this flexibility by yourself," Karalis said. You have to be the influencer." The problem: Concentration and vendor lock-in risk. Excessive vendor concentration, with reliance on a small number of U.S.-based tech providers, creates structural dependencies and higher risk. The solution: Shift to multi-vendor, multi-region ecosystems. That distributes risk across suppliers and regions, "even if it doesn't make sense from a financial and governance perspective." Tech acquisition today requires "architectural discipline," deploying standardized interfaces, interoperability and workload segmentation for seamless integration. The problem: Time, cost and operational inflation. Increased policy scrutiny is extending acquisition-approval cycles and adding compliance costs. Such hidden expense results in delays that hamper business agility. The solution: Design for resilience over efficiency. This calls for "a shift in mindset," Karalis said. "It comes from bigger conversations than getting a 5% discount." He added that organizations need to have in place "executable exit strategies," should a shift in providers be suddenly required. "Develop tested strategies with clear contract provisions and allocated funding for quick implementation," he said. "You need to be clear about who is going to do what." Bottom-line-minded chief financial officers need to be proactively advised about the necessary tradeoffs relating to risk, access and resilience. "I'm not telling you it's easy," Karalis told his audience of procurement professionals, "but you have a responsibility to be the commercial adviser, where you point out those concerns." And it's not going to get easier anytime soon. "I promise you," Karalis said. "There is a lot of disruption already underway, and more disruption to come." RELATED VIDEOS