ING CTO Named Chair of Enterprise Cloud Leadership Council

Tony Kerrison, CTO and head of infrastructure services at ING, has been named the new chair of the Enterprise Cloud Leadership Council (ECLC), a group run by TM Forum that aims to drive cloud standards and adoption.

ING has been a member of the ECLC for the past year. Kerrison succeeds Sean Kelley, the previous ECLC chair who recently left Deutsche Asset Management where he was global head of technology and operations.

The agenda for the ECLC, which has approximately 25 members, has been traditionally driven by financial services organizations, Kerrison said in an interview with Wall Street & Technology. There are six financial firms on the ECLC, more than any other industry vertical.

As the new chair, Kerrison hopes to get more support and activity from other members and make the agenda more inclusive of other industries. "The financial services industry is pushing very hard for cloud adoption," Kerrison says. "Typically, financial firms are on the leading edge of many new technologies. This is no different. Financial firms are are always pushing things harder and faster.

"There has been a small cluster of financial ECLC members that have been driving the agenda," Kerrison adds. "I want the broader set of members to get more involved. So far, I found that the meetings have been driven by financial services and we need to get other members more actively involved so we can gain their experience."

To date, the ECLC has already created working standard for database as a service, desktop as a service, virtual private cloud and a cloud training program, according to Matt Edwards, director of the Cloud and New Services initiative, TMForum. The ECLC is working on security standards as well, Kerrison adds.

As the new chair, Kerrison also plans to reach out to other cloud standards groups to coordinate efforts. "I want to work with other groups, such as the ODCA [Open Data Center Alliance], so we can complement each other so there are clear benefits and agreements on cloud initiatives," he says.

The momentum for cloud adopting is certainly accelerating, Kerrison admits, as cloud providers are improving offerings and pricing and as users get more comfortable with cloud technology. "At ING, for instance, we developed a private cloud," he says. "One area that is a big focus is around commodity services, such as email and desktop as a service. Those areas are going to gain a lot of momentum in a the next 12 to 24 months."

At ING, Kerrison is the leader for development, delivery, and management of the company's IT infrastructure and data center strategy. ING is a global financial institution offering banking, investments, life insurance and retirement services. Kerrison's cloud deployment expertise will help enable and grow the adoption of cloud standards across industry verticals within the ECLC's membership, including financial services, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, government and defense, aerospace and advertising. Greg MacSweeney is editorial director of InformationWeek Financial Services, whose brands include Wall Street & Technology, Bank Systems & Technology, Advanced Trading, and Insurance & Technology. View Full Bio