Prior to joining Westpac in 2011, Keith Winsor served as an Intelligence Officer in the Royal Australian Air Force and transitioned into a civilian role with the Department of Defence. Recognised as having valuable leadership and strategic experience, Keith was brought into Westpac as a Senior Manager to provide fresh perspectives on projects within the Global Transactions Sales Services area of the Institutional Bank.
Despite not having any banking experience, Keith utilised his military experience to focus on improving capabilities and performance management techniques to support the achievement of revenue targets. He developed a strategy to improve technology integration and the customer service offering and coached client managers under his leadership to improve client relations. This resulted in improvements in overall team performance, with a team member being awarded Institutional Banking Employee of the Year, improved revenue growth and delivering on agreed growth targets.
As Chair of the Westpac Veterans Employee Action Group (EAG), Keith brought his expertise in analytics and insights to introduce veteran retention tracking across the Westpac Group. The initiative monitors veterans throughout the recruitment and on-boarding lifecycle to identify where they may be falling down in the hiring process so that specialist recruiters can provide support to specific veteran and spouse applicants. The recruitment specialists are able to provide guidance and coaching to the veteran applicant and also further educate the hiring manager on the value veterans bring to the business.
Keith’s vision to hire more veterans led to the development and launch of a pilot program in the Westpac Group’s Risk Division. Keith collaborated with the talent acquisition team to design a pilot program to fast track veteran candidates into the Risk Division. Under this initiative, any veteran that applies for a role will be fast-tracked to the interview stage. The success of the program will provide opportunities for it to be expanded across Westpac.