Australia's Google boss quits for digital job at ANZ bank

The managing director of Google Australia and New Zealand, Maile Carnegie, has announced she is resigning from the company.

Carnegie, who spent three years at the technology giant, will move to ANZ bank as group executive of digital banking in July. 

The news was announced Tuesday on ANZ's website, with Carnegie saying she was enticed by the bank's digital transformation plans and wanted to spend more time in Australia.

"There is so much passion to change the bank, to digitally transform the bank ... I was really excited about the vision," she said in a video. 

"I love the idea I can really anchor my career back in Australia, I've spent so much time working for multinationals and bumping around the world, and one thing I am very passionate about is helping to work more broadly on what is going on in innovation in Australia."

It is somewhat of a coup for the bank, which is no doubt looking to bring some Google thinking to the banking industry. The big banks in Australia have been pushing further into innovation in recent years and ANZ is no exception. 

"It is really important to me ... that the company is open to change," Carnegie said regarding her move. But she said she was wary of taking the lessons from Google and pushing them onto an entirely different company. "You can't just transplant the culture from one company and shoehorn it into another," she added.

ANZ is about to get pushed into the 21st century, though, in case they were not already there.

"My assumption is that ANZ is a tech company, because in today's world if you are not a tech company or rapidly becoming one you are going to be in big trouble," she said. "While the strategies can't be shoehorned in, you can absolutely look at some of the principles of how do you create an innovation engine that is going to run hard enough and fast enough to win in the 21st century."

ANZ CEO Shayne Elliott is passionate about pushing the bank forward digitally, and gave his management team a rather large shake-up in January of this year. Bringing on Carnegie is the second last big move in his new structure, with the company still waiting to fill the chief financial officer role. 

“The aim is to ensure we successfully compete in a world where connectivity and digital are more important to customers than ever before and where community expectations have never been higher," Elliot said in January, according to The Australian.

With the hire of Carnegie as head of digital, it appears Elliott doesn't just talk the talk. 

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