Chief Information Officer
Western Alliance Bank
Michael J. “Sonny” Sonnenstein is Chief Information Officer for Western Alliance Bank. As CIO, Mr. Sonnenstein oversees all technology groups and functions for the Bank, including hardware, software, and key vendor relationships.
Mr. Sonnenstein brings more than 30+ years of experience to his role at Western Alliance Bank, having served in senior-level roles in banking, technology and management consulting. Most recently, he was the group CIO for consumer, business and digital banking at New York-based M&T Bank, where he spearheaded significant modernization and innovation efforts.
Prior to M&T, Mr. Sonnenstein was enterprise CIO at Umpqua Bank and, before that, deputy CIO at First Horizon. His early career was spent in consulting with PriceWaterhouseCoopers, where he worked with leading domestic and global financial service companies on strategy and technology projects, as well as in the banking industry with Wachovia (now Wells Fargo).
Mr. Sonnenstein earned both his Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management and his Master of Business Administration in Finance and Management Information Systems at Cornell University.
The critical role of leadership in dismantling the traditional silos between product innovation and risk compliance to transform potential friction into a competitive advantage has never been more important. By shifting the organizational narrative from “compliance as a gatekeeper” to “risk as a design parameter,” forward-thinking leaders can foster a culture where regulatory requirements are integrated into the earliest stages of the digital product lifecycle rather than treated as a post-development bottleneck. Experts will discuss actionable strategies for aligning cross-functional incentives, implementing unified workflow models to increase transparency, and cultivating a shared language of “sustainable speed” that empowers teams to innovate aggressively without compromising safety or trust.