Alastair Welsh

As General Manager, Commercial Banking in Westpac’s Business Bank, Alastair leads $2b revenue business with a team of more than 1,100 professional bankers who serve 19,000 clients, with $60b of lending and $35b of deposits. Alastair has more than 25 years’ experience in the financial services industry – including 23 years at Westpac in both New Zealand and Australia. During this time he has led the Small Business strategy for Westpac Retail and Business Banking (RBB) and was the Transformation Director for Westpac Group on the integration team for the Westpac and the St.George Bank merger. Over the last 10 years, Alastair has led businesses with over 500 people and revenue over $500m as a General Manager at Westpac in Australia. Alastair has a broad range of experience in leadership and transformation roles – driving innovation, business improvement and change initiatives to deliver customer, financial and people outcomes. He has established Commercial Banking’s first Innovation Hub to support its go-to-market strategy, banking propositions and customer experience. He has led Westpac’s Industry Innovation Challenge, which has supported entrepreneurs with more than $120,000 in grants awarded since 2014 to date. Alastair is now on the board of one of Westpac’s Innovation Challenge winners: healthcare financial management start-up Surgical Partners. Alastair led Westpac Commercial Banking’s first trade mission to China for Agribusiness customers in partnership with Austrade. He is an alumni of leadership, innovation and change programs through IMD, Wharton, Harvard and Stanford and has spent time in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Singapore and Malaysia, building relationships among fintechs and start-ups. Alastair is a Chartered Accountant (NZ), holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Administration (Victoria University, NZ) and a Master of Business Administration with Distinction (Massey University, NZ). He and his wife Deborah live in Sydney with their three children.