John P. Singleton, Security Pacific Corp.'s onetime technology czar, has gone East to International Business Machines Corp.'s outsourcing unit.
The bank automation superstar, who left SecPac after its April wedding to BankAmerica Corp., is now installed at Integrated Systems Solutions Corp., Big Blue's lackluster outsourcing arm. The White Plains, N.Y., unit started strong in 1991, right after its formation, when it announced a $400 million deal with Continental Bank. But it has not secured a new bank client this year.
Mr. Singleton should help. The 55-year-old executive is widely admired and was one of the few bank technologists who managed to crack the upper echelons of bank management.
While chairman and chief executive officer of Security Pacific's automation subsidiary, Mr. Singleton was also chief operating officer of the parent company. He earned kudos for cutting SecPac's data processing expenses by hundreds of millions of dollars a year and for promoting the use of advanced technologies like image processing.
After departing from the Los Angeles-based bank - with a severance package of more than $1 million - Mr. Singleton was a banking consultant and did volunteer community work in Los Angeles.
Industry sources say that Mr. Singleton won't be the last bank-techie to pop up at IBM. The outsourcing unit is expected to snag some of the casualties of Chemical Banking Corp.'s merger to Manufacturers Hanover Trust Co.
