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Nottingham Building Society Names Russ Thornton New Chief Technology Officer

CTO

Business Honor - Russ Thornton Named CTO at Nottingham BS

Business Honor
28 July, 2025

Nottingham Building Society appoints Russ Thornton as CTO to lead its digital transformation efforts.

Nottingham Building Society, a UK's oldest mutual financial organization, has made permanent the appointment of Russ Thornton as its Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Thornton was interim advisory CTO since March 2025 prior to his taking up the role permanently. Thornton replaces Paul Howley, who took up the post of Chief Technology and Transformation Officer in 2022 and was responsible for overseeing the introduction of top technology projects for the 176-year-old building society. During Howley's tenure, Nottingham Building Society embarked on a series of significant digital change projects, including partnerships with MQube to implement the Origo mortgage origination platform and Nova Credit to introduce the cross-border credit solution Credit Passport. These projects helped modernize the society's capacity to process mortgages and evaluate credit.

Russ Thornton brings with him deep financial technology leadership experience, having just completed a major digital transformation at Shawbrook Bank. At Shawbrook, he led the roll-out of Pegasystems to automate underwriting rules, utilized Cashflows to automate business finance payments, and used nCino's cloud banking platform to automate origination and portfolio management of loans. His experience includes tenure as CTO at WorldRemit, McKinney Rogers, and Cofunds, where he systematically spearheaded technology modernization and innovation. Thornton's appointment demonstrates Nottingham Building Society's ongoing commitment to harnessing technology to deliver better customer experience and operational effectiveness. His tenure is expected to drive the society's digital strategy forward and assist in the growth of its financial services and products.

In addition to a new CTO, Nottingham Building Society has also strengthened its executive ranks by recruiting Aaron Shinwell, a Santander UK former executive, as its new Chief Lending Officer from August 2025. The two appointments are a considered focus on developing technology and lending capacity to support future growth and innovation at the building society.