Buckley Leaves CIO Role to Head Retail at Vanguard

By Cory Levine, Wall Street & Technology

Tim Buckley, formerly managing director and CIO of The Vanguard Group (Valley Forge, Penn.) has moved from the technology organization to the business, as managing director in the retail investor group. Paul Heller replaces him as CIO.

This will not be Buckley's first foray into the business side of the $1 trillion investment firm. He has previously held leadership positions within corporate planning and development, and has even worked within the retail group before.

While Buckley's move from IT to head a business unit is unusual, it's a trend that is occurring more frequently. "A lot of what we're seeing these days is the fact that technology is embedded in the fundamental business processes, to the point now that a lot of the technology people ... have to know those business processes as well, and in many cases better, than the users themselves," explains Shawn Banerji, executive director of recruitment firm Russell Reynolds Associates. "That's creating this dynamic now where technology executives more and more are transitioning to these 'business roles.'"

Before taking on his new position, Buckley spoke with Wall Street & Technology Radio about the IT department's key initiatives, which include improving Vanguard's interactive advice engine, enhancing information security with multifactor authentication, and several projects in CRM and Web-based client service.