Pacific Western Bank hired Steven Schwimmer to serve in the newly created position of executive vice president and chief innovation officer.

In this role, Schwimmer will be responsible for Pacific Western Bank’s systems and applications environment, as well as various bank operations groups. He joined the bank with more than 27 years of experience in the technology and process area of banking and financial services. Most recently, Schwimmer served as head of technology and operations for the consumer bank and treasury payment solutions of CIT. Prior to that, he was affiliated with OneWest Bank and responsible for commercial bank technology, enterprise applications and technology operations.

“Steve is a great addition to help lead our systems, applications and various operations groups as we drive the bank’s increased focus on technology solutions and enhanced processes,” Mark Yung, executive vice president and chief operations officer of Pacific Western Bank, said. “His depth of experience and proven ability to deliver forward-thinking solutions will be extremely valuable to our team.”

Schwimmer began his career with Accenture before transitioning into the technology process and improvement space with IndyMac Bank.