Kendall Kowalski

Executive VP & Chief Information Officer, Huntington Bancshares

Search every verified Kendall Kowalski interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Kendall Kowalski, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Huntington Bancshares, discussed the company's technology strategy and core modernization efforts in a December 2022 interview on the Technovation podcast. He described the bank's approach to updating its legacy technology stack, noting that after evaluating whether to replace the core system entirely, the organization concluded that the existing core was relatively inexpensive to run and retained it, focusing instead on addressing specific components that were difficult to change. Kowalski also detailed the establishment of a transformation office to drive digitization of the customer experience, including efforts to move from point-to-point interfaces to event-driven architecture that pushes data from customer interaction points to a data warehouse in real time for more personalized service. Kowalski also spoke about Huntington's "people first, digitally powered" philosophy, emphasizing that the bank supports customers across all channels—digital, branch, and call center—rather than forcing them into a purely digital journey. He and fellow executive Paul Heller discussed their long-standing collaboration, which began at Bank One and JPMorgan Chase, and shared advice on leadership, including the importance of finding mentors and building teams that complement one's own weaknesses. Kowalski highlighted the bank's intentionally flat organizational structure, which he said facilitates collaboration across different groups.