ON September 2015 | Page 28

27 Middlesex Savings Bank has enjoyed tremendous growth during the past few years. The Massachusetts-based mutual savings bank has more than doubled in size to 28 branches, 59 ATMs and just under 600 employees, and it has also seen massive growth in its IT department. With this expansion has come a sharp focus on how to best position IT to become even more relevant to the organization. “What we have realized is that IT needs to do more than just run technology, and we needed different skill sets on our team, like business analysts and project managers,” says Sean Burke, SVP and IT director at Middlesex Bank. “It needs to be strategically positioned to add value and understand unique business needs.” All too often, today’s IT department is strong technically but struggles to relate to the business and is stuck in “run” mode. But Middlesex Savings Bank is setting out to change that by empowering the IT department to have better communication and alignment with other business units. For instance, Burke’s team now includes a number of business analysts who work in IT but are assigned to bu