The head of one of Deutsche Bank's hot 'innovation labs' has just quit for Bank of America

If there's one part of Deutsche Bank where the bank is making a huge push right now, it's in its 'innovation labs'. Deutsche has opened centres in Berlin, New York, London and Silicon Valley to help it keep up with rapidly developing, or increasingly important, technology like artificial intelligence, robotics, cloud technology and cyber-security.

However, the co-founder and head of its innovation lab in New York has just quit for Bank of America. Dean Mazboudi led Deutshe's innovation lab in New York for nearly three years, but left in May to join Bank of America's global markets business as a managing director in charge of architecture and strategy.

There's been a lot of flux in the senior ranks of Deutsche Bank's technology team in recent months. In December, it named Elly Hardwick, who had spent four years as CEO of fintech firm Credit Benchmark, as its new head of innovation. Henry Ritchotte, Deutsche Bank's chief digital officer left after 22 years in December and is currently seeding fintech start-ups.

Mazboudi joined Deutsche Bank in June 2014 from UBS, where he was chief technology officer for its wealth management and investment bank in the U.S. Before that, it was chief architect at inter-dealer broker ICAP. He co-founded Deutsche's innovation lab along with Jon Pearson, who heads Deutsche's innovation lab in London.

Deutsche's innovation labs were set up to keep up with the rapid pace of technological change disrupting the banking industry. Pearson described them previously as a "dedicated environment where innovation can be allowed to flourish.” They work with universities, tech start-ups, VC firms and accelerators.

Mazboudi was particularly involved with robotic process automation, which was being used at Deutsche Bank to remove manual processes from back and middle office processes. Deutsche is focused on using technology for 'efficiencies', but Mazboudi told the publication CIO that Deutsche used automation to remove the need for tedious tasks - that often meant bored employees left after a few months - in trade finance, cash operations, loan operations, and tax.

Contact: pclarke@efinancialcareers.com

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