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Image Gallery: 2010 Global CIOs

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Liang Jianwen - China Construction Bank

Thanks to a few blockbuster acquisitions and a global financial crisis, it hasn't exactly been the most smooth and peaceful three years of Liang Jianwen's life. For the CIO and senior VP of China Construction Bank (Asia), they've been the most tense, and intense, of his 30 year career. But the challenges have brought him and his IT team more opportunities.

In August 2006, China Construction Bank (CCB) acquired 100% of Bank of America (Asia), the Hong Kong based wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of. CCB (Asia) also has grown organically in Hong Kong and Macao, with its network growing three times since 2007.

In August 2009, CCB acquired AIG's subsidiary, AIG Finance (Hong Kong). M&A integration must be part of the playbook for any banking IT team, and Liang's deployed core business systems, enterprise databases, risk management tools, and database integration for AIG. More impressive: it did so in only six months.

In the crisis, Liang's role was not only to make sure IT supported the business, but also to demand measurable return on investment for each project, to make sure IT resources were allocated to the most important projects. In the past, requests to buy or build applications focused a lot on the reasons and importance for the app. Liang's philosophy now: applications must "speak by data"-how many more customers, how much cost reduction, how is the return measured? -Hu Yufang