Dilipkumar Khandelwal, who was formerly managing director, SAP Labs India, has joined Deutsche Bank as the head of its technology centres. He will also become the Head of Technology, Data and Innovation for the Asia Pacific and Chief Information Officer for Human Resources, Legal and Communications for the bank. Khandelwal will be based in Pune.

The German bank stated that Khandelwal would oversee the development of the bank's technology centres globally to create "one, consistent strategy while continuing to work with our businesses on developing technology to improve the client experience".

Khandelwal, who spent 18 years at the German software firm before joining Deutsche Bank, built the SAP labs in Bengaluru, which became the second-largest unit of SAP. He also set up SAP Startup Studio, the software maker’s accelerator programme to incubate startups.

Khandelwal is also an active angel investor and has invested in startups such as Whatfix, Loadshare, Signzy, Moglix and Fablestreet. He is also a limited VC partner in Fireside Ventures, and Stellaris Venture Partners.

Khandelwal has a proven track record within the technology industry for being innovative, transformative and focused on clients’ needs. With this appointment, the German Bank will aim to leverage his experience in further bolstering IT strategy. Recently, the bank was also in news for using robots to replace 18,000 employees. As per reports, Deutsche Bank is pushing to "automate large parts of its back-office" via a new strategy called "Operations 4.0," as part of its $6.6 Bn savings initiative over the next three years.