Carlo Driussi is the Executive Vice President & COO of UniCredit Bank Romania. His banking career started in 1997 and he has held leadership positions since 2003. After moving to Bank of Rome in HR department, he took part to the start-up of Capitalia Holding and took over the position of Head of HR of CSJV, a joint venture company between Capitalia and Archon Group (Goldman Sacks)
He took part to the start-up of Capitalia Informatica (currently UniCredit Services) in 2005, before moving to Milan in 2008 for the merger with UniCredit as Head of HR Business Partners in Finance, Communication and holding functions. He moved to UniCredit Bank Serbia as HR Director in 2011 and became the COO of the same Bank in 2015.
He has amazing background and experience so we thought we just had to sit down with him and ask him a few questions about the company and Techsylvania.
Q: You say that digitalization is in your company’s DNA. How does UniCredit use innovation to provide clients with experiences that fit their needs and lifestyle?
A: Digitalization has been a key priority to UniCredit for many years, as we put our customers at the centre of our business strategy. Today, especially in a post-pandemic world, customers ask for state-of-the-art digital solutions oriented towards their needs, flexible and simple products and processes, access to innovative solutions. The pandemic changed an option for digitalization in a concrete need. We, at UniCredit, started to increase the solutions for companies to handle some of the contracts and documents digitally years ago and gradually, we saw a growing number of companies adopting this way of doing business.
We also enhanced our new mobile banking application for private individuals customers, developed in partnership with an innovative Finnish fintech, Meniga. Now the application includes a personal finance manager (PFM module) solution that tracks transactions, categorizes them, and gives the customer a very easy view on their spending. It integrates, as well, the functionality ShopSmart (cashback offers), instant virtual debit cards issuing directly in the application, remote customer data update via photo ID upload and smart multifunctional ATMs withdrawal without using a plastic card. UniCredit was also a pioneer in integrating AI in its services through the robot “Ioana” (a Natural Language Understanding solution) which is continuously enhanced to improve customers’ experience.
Q: What is that „something” that makes you stand out from the crowd?
A: Through everything we do, we want to offer communities the opportunity to progress, building on the unique expertise that comes from the synergy of the 13 markets in our European banking network. In line with our ambition to be a truly digital bank, powered by data in everything we do, we have a plan to invest heavily at group level until 2024 on IT services, improving the user experience, creating a new digital offering, making simpler and faster international payments, and strengthening our cyber defences. These are precisely the differentiators and success factors that make us stand out from the crowd and our focus on the Romanian market. By the way, did I mention that UniCredit offered, in world premiere, the first credit card on the name of an artificial intelligence user, Sophia The Robot?
Q: What will a future employee find at UniCredit that’s going to make him love his job?
A: I believe that our openness to digital and innovation are also key elements of our employer branding profile, appealing precisely to new talents that want to explore, develop and have a native curiosity to explore new territories of business. So, in this logic, we are very proud to present our new digital “baby”: Tech School. Briefly, Tech school is a program meant to increase awareness on digital solutions and the adoption of new technologies inside the organization and keep our colleagues connected to the digital world, often restricted to a group of experts. Tech School is also a tool we designed to attract and retain external young talents with technical skills and make them part of UniCredit team, by offering them a ticket in the “back stage” of the digital knowledge areas.
The Tech School connects top speakers all around the world with our internal audience during monthly events on different trending digital topics (such as Blockchain, Artificial intelligence, Metaverse, Cloud Computing, etc). The first selected topic was Artificial Intelligence, which was detailed by a well-known, reputable speaker from Cotrugli Business School — Terence Tse, as UniCredit Bank is already using RPA technology (Robotic Process Automation) in order to automatize the internal processes. The second topic on the agenda will be Blockchain Innovation in Banking. Additionally, starting June 2022, we will also launch an IT internship program for students from top Tech Universities, with a duration of 6 months. At the end of this program our commitment is to have onboarded young talents willing to build the digital future.
On a broader umbrella, Tech School is also part of our commitment that aims at empowering communities to progress and in this specific case we talk about a community of young students that can access various learning opportunities such as internships and trainings on the job. Tech School is their access ticket to the business world at an early stage of their professional life. The success of the program is already given by the number of CVs we received so far from students willing to join our team.
Q: What are the objectives for Techsylvania and what do you want to leave this conference with?
A: We are very happy to be partners of Techsylvania, one of the important technology events in the SEE, as for UniCredit the digitization of banking services is the backbone of our business strategy. Moreover, we share the same goals of empowering communities to progress through enabling passionate talks about the digital trends and also encourage the young innovators to pitch their ideas and give them the possibility to implement them. I am sure that the content I will find at Techsylvania will inspire me and my team to further consolidate our innovation and digital agenda within UniCredit Bank.
We are really excited that we had the opportunity to talk to Carlo before Techsylvania, but now we are even more excited to see him on stage on June 28 and 29 in Cluj Napoca! See you there!