Sanzone joins the Swiss bank on 29 August from Citigroup, where he was CIO and head of operations for the group's global corporate investment bank, as well as being responsible for real estate and general services. He will be a member of the new executive board for the banking business of Credit Suisse, with effect from January, next year.

Sanzone started his career as a trainee programmer at Salomon Brothers’ mortgage trading group 21 years ago. He is widely respected in the industry for his work over the past five years in seeing Citi through the tech downturn without stifling the bank's reputation for tech innovation. At Citi, he put a lot of effort into standardising technology resources and project management and reducing costs through offshoring development and outsourcing. In 2003, his group deployed CitiVision, a Web services-based portal application that delivers real-time information to investment bankers in 100 countries and allows them to prepare personalised portfolios for customers and share updated information.

Oswald Grübel, CEO of Credit Suisse, says: "Information Technology is crucial to our success as a global bank. Tom brings outstanding experience of delivering real, practical and state-of-the-art technology solutions to the user community and successfully leading one of the largest technology teams in the industry. I am confident that he will make a significant contribution to the implementation of our strategy."

Meanwhile, over at Citibank, Kevin Kessinger - most recently the head of the bank's consumer finance business - has been appointed as head of operations and technology. In this new role Kessinger replaces Debby Hopkins, who has shaped the bank's technology strategy over the past three years. Hopkins will stay on at Citibank, although her future role has yet to be determined.