Martin Prater

DBA Alumnus
Oberglatt, Switzerland

Martin Prater - Oberglatt, Switzerland
Doctor of Business Administration Graduate - SMC
Postgrad Certificate in Advanced Business Research - USQ, Australia
M.B.A. -  University Hagen, Germany
Computer Science - KVZ Business School, Zurich, Switzerland

Industry Background
After completing his A-Levels in 1988 Martin started his career programming a software solution package for dentists on the Apple Macintosh. Later he moved to IBM as a systems engineer and project manager working both in Switzerland and California. At this time he co-authored the IBM Redbook “MVS to AIX Application Migration Cookbook”. In 1994 he joined the independent Private Bank Julius Baer in Zurich as an IT architect. Since 1996 Martin has held a number of management roles within the IT department at Credit Suisse in Zurich. Currently he is the Director of Application Services responsible for Engineering web technologies, business intelligence, the Java enterprise platform as well as middleware. His team is based in New York, London, Zurich and Pune (India).

Personal Vision & Plan
The financial industry is going through a dramatic transition phase. Being part of this is both challenging and intimidating. In this situation it is inevitable to rise to the challenge at hand while avoiding panic. Martin believes that the whole market environment will be faced with increased requirements around regulation, ultimately raising the bar for professionalism and control. Meeting these requirements while maintaining efficiency will be the key to long term business success. Having both the background in business and a long tenure within IT is the personal success factor Martin believes will be his individual competitive advantage in this environment. His personal interests and goals lie at the crossroads of business and IT. Understanding how IT can offer new business opportunities rather than be confined to the efficiency space has become his personal ambition. In this context Martin’s dissertation focuses on Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) which according to Gartner addresses providing real-time access to critical business performance indicators along with the supporting information to improve the speed and effectiveness of business operations.