This senior technologist has just left Goldman Sachs for J.P. Morgan

In the battle for senior technologists, Goldman Sachs has been a target for many other large investment banks. Another managing director has departed for a competitor, this time making the leap across to J.P. Morgan.

Krishnan P. Sankaran, who was head of Federation technology at Goldman Sachs in Asia-Pacific, has just joined J.P. Morgan's asset management division as Asia head of GIM Technology based out of Hong Kong. 'The Federation' is the overarching term for Goldman's non-revenue generating functions including operations, compliance and internal audit.

This is a significant departure, and not just because Sankaran has left the 'firm' for its biggest competitor. Sankaran worked at Goldman Sachs for 20 years, having joined in August 1996. He has held various senior technology roles across Asia including the head of fixed income currencies and commodities technology and head of equities delta one and derivatives technology.

Sankaran has been working in Tokyo since 2003 and was promoted to managing director at Goldman in 2008. The new role at J.P. Morgan will be based in Hong Kong.

Technology has, of course, become increasingly important in financial services organisations and there's been a lot of churn at the top in recent months. Morgan Stanley, for example, moved senior technologist Simon Holden from London to Hong Kong to lead its Asia-Pacific technology functions.

J.P. Morgan itself has been shaking up its technology team in recent weeks. Mark Ashton-Rigby, its chief information officer for the corporate and investment bank, departed in May and has since joined Barclays as group CIO. He was later replaced by Lori Beer. Meanwhile, managing director John MacDonald left for Citadel Securities to head up its European technology function.

Contact: pclarke@efinancialcareers.com