Geoff Wenborn
Bank of Sydney
Chief Operating Officer
Geoff Wenborn, COO of Bank of Sydney, was one of the jury members for the Qorus-Infosys Finacle Banking Innovation Awards 2025. In this interview with Qorus’ Boris Plantier, he reflects on leadership, team dynamics, and the role of life outside work—including the importance of sport, both as a way to take a break from work and as an influence on how he organizes it.
Please tell us a little bit about your background.
I am currently the COO for Bank of Sydney, and I have been in similar roles and CIO roles for much of my career across multiple industries, but primarily in banking and financial services. I also spend some of my time in executive advisory roles, particularly for technology-based startups and not-for-profits such as the Starlight Children's Foundation.
What does your workplace look like?
My workplace looks pretty similar to many others, with a desk in an open plan environment, in an office in the middle of Sydney—a great city to live and work. Many of my team work with other business departments and my desk is in close proximity to our back-office services, payments team, and contact center. It's a very dynamic and lively environment to be part of day to day.
Could you describe your usual working day?
I usually arrive in the workplace at about 7:15 am and try to leave by 6 pm if I have no external commitments. The first two to two and a half hours are generally spent preparing for the day, but also thinking through longer term actions and activities to follow up. Once the meeting cycle starts, the day becomes a bit more reactive depending on which particular week in our monthly cycle it is and what's happening in the business.
What is your favorite food?
I am not a big foodie—which is not to say I don't love eating! I have traveled to India a lot and Indian cuisine is often our go-to at home and on weekends. I have to say I do love a good Australian barbecue with the family and friends.
What do you do when you need a break from work?
Ideally we love to travel as a family to new places and different cultures and try to experience being part of the local vibe. We’ve been fortunate to have done many trips to various countries with this approach, often during a sporting event of some kind. Over the weekend I also like to play sport and participate in sporting events, and I am very passionate about following my team. If there’s an opportunity to get away locally, that would be to head to the beach and perhaps do some swimming, walking, or fishing.
What is the key to building a successful team?
As I mentioned above I'm very keen on sports, but particularly team sports—and successful teams are always about the contribution of all players on the field to a common objective. For me, building business teams is no different. It is more complex because you are part of multiple teams in a business and aligning goals can be more difficult. However, with good sponsorship, alignment, and clear goals, great things can happen when there is clarity on the roles and how we all work together. A successful business team has the ability to sustain and deliver outcomes, often while working in a disruptive and competitive environment.
There is a saying that we learn more from failure than success. Tell me about one of your failures and what you have learned from it.
As a serial large-scale C-level transformation leader inside organizations big and small, most projects I have been involved with fail at some level. On-time and on-budget is a bit of a myth, as any long-term change activity will have to deal with change and adjust over time. But that’s OK. Even if the initial objectives do not get delivered as originally envisaged, many other benefits usually arise, some intended and others more opportunistic. Making the most of the small wins along the way, embedding the changes, empowering the people, and finding other pathways to the objective are all part of the “fail fast and learn quickly” model. In a team sport, when a ball bounces a different way than expected, you have to adjust on the fly. It's not necessarily failure—it's an opportunity to regroup. Business initiatives and change projects are very similar.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to succeed in financial services?
My general advice for success is to be passionate about what you're doing, no matter what field of specialization you may be pursuing. It's hard to be truly successful without passion for the outcome. In my view you must be flexible about the definition of success, as often you cannot predict the path you will take. It’s usually amazing, but again you need to keep your eyes on the prize. In financial services, whatever field you're contributing from, there needs to be alignment with the organization’s goals and the ability to measure your individual contribution to those goals. It’s never easy with customer expectations, competition, complexity, new threats, and various other barriers to achievement, so personal resilience and persistence are critical. I also like to have fun along the way; there is more enjoyment being part of a team progressing towards that common goal.
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