NatWest appoints former IKEA and Target executive to lead customer experience
NatWest appoints former IKEA and Target executive to lead customer experience #
NatWest Group has appointed Harsh Agarwal as Managing Director, Customer Experience & Engagement. His career has been in consumer-facing technology and digital retail rather than financial services.
Agarwal joins NatWest’s Retail Banking leadership team, where he will oversee propositions, segment strategy, and digital experience capabilities. The bank said his mandate includes redesigning NatWest’s mobile app journeys, digital products, and services so that customers can manage their money more easily and with greater confidence.
He spent six years at Target in the United States, holding senior positions including Director of Product Management for Guest Fulfilment and Director of Product Management and Engineering for its Store of the Future programme. He joined IKEA in 2019 and served as Chief Omnichannel Officer with a global remit, connecting the retailer’s physical and digital customer channels. Earlier in his career he held leadership and consulting roles in technology and e-commerce businesses across the United States. He holds an MBA in Marketing and Information Technology.
Solange Chamberlain, CEO of Retail Banking at NatWest Group, said the bank serves roughly one in three UK families, which she described as creating a significant responsibility to help customers build stronger financial futures. She said Agarwal’s experience converting consumer insight into commercial value would support efforts to deliver more personalised banking and deeper customer relationships.
Agarwal said he was drawn to the role by the opportunity to make a meaningful difference for millions of customers through the NatWest brand.
The appointment follows a pattern among established banks of recruiting outside the financial sector as competition from digital-only rivals has grown. NatWest’s choice of a consumer technology executive indicates the bank views the challenge from app-first competitors as centred on customer experience, and that it believes executives from high-volume consumer sectors are well positioned to address it.
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