CW@60: Choosing change, building confidence - leading with clarity and resilience

On 22 September 2026, Computer Weekly turns 60. To mark the milestone, we asked some of our friends - experts, parliamentarians, IT leaders and suppliers - for their perspectives on how tech has changed their lives over six decades. What's changed the most for you since then? There are moments when technology does not just improve what we do, it changes what is possible. Looking back, what shaped my journey most was not just keeping pace with change but being willing to step out of my comfort zone, take on new challenges and move ahead with conviction. Across China, the US and Singapore, each environment required a different balance – speed and adaptability in one, and discipline and structure in another. Being in Singapore, at the intersection of East and West, meant bringing these strengths together while navigating different cultures and expectations. That balance became especially relevant in my work at DBS as the bank’s CIO . Each move required rebuilding trust. What worked in one place does not always work in another, so I learned to read each environment and adapt. Today, I lead with clarity, cultural awareness and direction, helping teams move forward with confidence, even in the unfamiliar. A humbling reset When I moved to the US in the late 1990s to work on technology supporting global capital markets, I had to start over in a new environment. It was a humbling reset. The language, context and ways of communicating was all different. Rebuilding credibility from the ground up taught me something fundamental. Technical expertise is not enough. Technology does not create outcomes on its own. People do. I came to see that it is not just about balancing differences but deliberately drawing from the best of each – combining strengths in both technology and how organisations operate. My experience in China played a key role in shaping my leadership - managing at scale, navigating complexity and taking accountability for outcomes. Moving to Singapore presented a different kind of challenge, one I embraced. Over the years, across different geographies and cultures, I have seen the role of the CIO evolve . Today, it is not just about running technology well, but about bringing clarity into complexity, building resilience into systems, and helping organisations operate with confidence. In Singapore, that meant applying these lessons in a new environment, continuing to build trust across cultures and helping teams move forward with clarity and confidence. But this is never just about technology transformation. It is equally about cultural transformation. Systems can enable scale, but culture determines how consistently and effectively they are used. That was the lens I brought with me to DBS. Resilience and consistency The bank already had strong technology capabilities . The opportunity was to strengthen confidence, not just in what technology can do, but in how consistently and reliably it operates at scale. Resilience and consistency are therefore not optional. They must be designed and built into architecture, processes, and operating models from the start, with clear controls and discipline. That is what makes execution more predictable and repeatable, even under pressure. “Leadership is not about authority but influence. It is about helping people understand why something matters and building belief in what is possible” Eugene Huang As a leader, I believe in empowering teams to take ownership and act decisively, within clear guardrails. That creates trust and builds confidence. It also requires a shared understanding of what we stand for. In a rapidly changing environment, people need clear direction. Leadership is about setting that direction, so teams know what matters and can move forward with confidence. At DBS, we anchored this in a simple way. RISE – resiliency, innovation, security and efficiency – was introduced as a clear set of principles for how we build and operate technology. Alongside this, we set a longer-term ambition of one minute to detect, five minutes to diagnose and 10 minutes to recover: 1-5-10. These are not slogans. They are practical mechanisms that create a shared understanding of what we stand for, and help align teams, shape behaviour, and drive disciplined execution. When the direction is clear, teams can act decisively, not because they are instructed to, but because they understand what success looks like. East-West strategy Equally important is our focus on modernising the technology stack, establishing a deliberate East-West vendor strategy and improving how we operate through initiatives like the operating model transformation – a bank-wide effort to simplify structures, redesign workflows and help people and AI work together more effectively. A key part of this is automation . Through our group technology initiative, “Automate Everything,” we reduce manual intervention and bring greater consistency and control into how systems are run. This matters at scale, where outcomes are not dependent on individual actions. It shifts teams from reactive fixes to more structured, “by design” ways of working, with resilience and performance built in from the start. In this context, leadership is not about authority but influence. It is about helping people understand why something matters and building belief in what is possible. People can adapt and improve when they have clarity and confidence in the system around them. When the direction is clear, they understand what matters and can act. My role as a leader is to create that clarity, so that teams can take ownership and execute. Over time, this approach has strengthened confidence internally and externally in DBS. It has brought technology, business and culture closer together, reinforcing innovation, resilience and consistent execution at scale. Looking ahead, the pace of change will continue to increase, especially with artificial intelligence . The challenge will be finding the right balance between AI and human judgement, while keeping clarity and control. Across all the changes I have seen, one principle has remained constant - confidence is built, not assumed. In the end, technology is only as strong as the confidence people have in it. And that confidence comes from clarity, discipline and resilience – designed into both systems and culture from the start. Eugene Huang is CIO of DBS Bank. Read all of Computer Weekly's 60th anniversary essays Technology is changing the way we live and work like never before – touching people’s lives every day, opening up new opportunities and creating new challenges. So for our 60 th anniversary, we wanted to reflect on the human stories of how the digital revolution has changed the lives of some of the key leaders and influencers in tech today. Read our full collection of essays, which offers a unique set of insights and perspectives into the changes we have seen during Computer Weekly's first 60 years. CW@60 - How technology has changed our lives over 60 years