Chief Security Officer
Deborah Guild became chief technology officer at PNC Financial Services Group in 2013 and chief security officer in 2017. But with expanded duties she took on late last year, she is now responsible for enterprise technology and security for the $550 billion-asset Pittsburgh company, which is integrating the business and technology gained with its acquisition of BBVA USA.
Is she a glutton for punishment?
“It’s not for the faint of heart,” Guild says with a laugh. But she also feels her three decades in banking, starting at Barnett Bank in the 1990s, have trained her well for this role.
The pandemic-driven shift to remote work made merging the CTO and CSO roles a logical step. Security risks have accelerated and are harder to identify when people are working in a variety of locations. Young employees sharing apartments and Wi-Fi with roommates and neighbors are a particular concern, as they give hackers an easier target and better camouflage for their movements inside a company’s network.
In addition to merger work and a data center consolidation, Guild’s combined team has been busy with several major tech initiatives in recent months, including preparing to deploy a new core system.
The BBVA acquisition closed on June 1, making PNC the fifth-largest commercial bank in the country, up from No. 7. PNC opted to not use BBVA’s core, and instead migrate customers to its own Hogan core banking system, then migrate the combined customer base to a new core. Guild declined to say which core system PNC will be using. Her team is building security layers for it.
“Most banks are dependent on a mainframe batch system,” Guild said. “What we are lighting up is a real-time core. Real-time payments is where the future is, giving people real-time access and settling that in real-time fashion is important to us.”
