Nikita Agarwal appointed leadership and talent lead at Commonwealth Bank

Nikita Agarwal has stepped into a new role as leadership, culture and talent lead at Commonwealth Bank, taking on responsibility for strengthening leadership capability, organisational culture and talent strategy as artificial intelligence and digital transformation reshape the workplace.

In her new position, Agarwal will work closely with leaders across the bank to build the mindsets, capabilities and organisational conditions needed to navigate increasing complexity, accelerate transformation and deliver sustainable business outcomes.

The appointment underscores the bank’s continued focus on leadership excellence, workforce capability and future-ready talent strategies.

AI transformation

Before taking on her latest role, Agarwal served as head of HR and executive manager for technology & AI at Commonwealth Bank.

During that time, she led organisation redesign and AI-driven transformation initiatives across key technology functions, including cybersecurity, fraud and scams, engineering, business resilience and intelligence.

She played a central role in developing workforce strategies that supported large-scale transformation programmes and technology modernisation efforts across the bank.

Driving growth

Earlier, Agarwal was executive manager and HR business partner for the chief technology office, supporting a global workforce of around 3,500 employees across cloud, engineering, technology architecture and IT functions.

She led major transformation programmes, mergers and acquisitions integration projects and talent development initiatives. She also oversaw the bank’s technology graduate programme and leadership pipeline development.

Prior to that, she served in the same designation for payments, technology & operations. In the role, she led people strategy for newly established business units across Australia, New Zealand and India.

She also supported the rapid expansion of Commonwealth Bank’s India operations and helped drive enterprise-wide agile transformation initiatives aimed at improving workforce agility and operational effectiveness.

Diverse experience

Before joining Commonwealth Bank, Agarwal spent more than four years at IBM, where she held several senior HR leadership roles.

As program lead for HR governance and risk, she led culture transformation programmes, HR process redesign projects, governance improvements and employee lifecycle initiatives across Australia and New Zealand.

She also held roles as senior HRBP for data, digital and cloud, and HRBP for global business services, supporting organisational redesign, cloud transformation, acquisitions, digital business growth and leadership effectiveness programmes.

Earlier in her career, Agarwal worked at KPMG Australia as a workforce analytics and insights consultant. There, she established and led people analytics initiatives focused on workforce planning, diversity, attrition and talent insights.

She also spent several years with Deloitte Consulting, advising organisations on change management, organisational transformation, mergers and acquisitions, organisational redesign and large-scale technology adoption.

Agarwal began her professional journey in audit and assurance, working as an audit graduate and later as a senior audit associate across the financial services, telecommunications and entertainment sectors.

Future focus

Over the course of her career, Agarwal has developed expertise in leadership development, culture transformation, talent strategy, workforce planning, organisational design, change management, people analytics and AI-enabled business transformation.

She holds a Master of Business Administration in International Business and Commerce from K J Somaiya Institute of Management.

Her latest appointment positions her at the centre of Commonwealth Bank’s efforts to prepare its workforce and leadership teams for the opportunities and challenges emerging from AI and ongoing digital transformation.