Westpac Appoints Chief AI Innovation Officer to Accelerate Enterprise AI Adoption

Westpac has created a new executive role focused on advancing artificial intelligence initiatives, appointing former Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Meta engineer Maggie Shi as its first Chief AI Innovation Officer.

The newly established position is designed to drive the incubation and scaling of AI-driven solutions across the bank, with a particular emphasis on emerging technologies such as generative AI and agentic AI systems. Shi will oversee experimentation, prototyping, and the transition of innovative AI use cases into production environments to deliver tangible business outcomes.

Reporting to Andrew McMullan, the role aligns with Westpac’s broader strategy to integrate AI capabilities across its operations, combining data, engineering, and automation to enhance efficiency and customer experience.

Shi brings significant experience in enterprise AI platforms, having most recently served as a distinguished engineer at Commonwealth Bank. In that role, she led teams working on core data and AI infrastructure, including MLOps, LLMOps, and advanced generative and agentic AI systems.

In announcing her appointment, Shi described the role as focused on driving AI adoption at scale across the enterprise. The mandate includes unifying AI development with operational execution to create long-term value for the organisation.

The appointment reflects a growing trend among financial institutions to formalise AI leadership at the executive level, as banks increasingly look to embed advanced AI capabilities into core business processes and competitive strategy.