People

Anil Cheriyan started Phase IV Ventures in April 2018 as a consulting & advisory firm leveraging his experience as a Board member, CIO and several years in consulting.  

Prior to this, he served as Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer at SunTrust Banks, where he led the digital and data platform transformation of the bank, driving architectural decisions such as APIs, robotics, data lake, Zelle, core banking, and cloud, that improved client experience and drove the bank’s efficiency in todays evolving digital, financial ecosystem.  

As CIO, Mr. Cheriyan was responsible for SunTrust’s overall information technology, cyber security and business enterprise operations – i.e., contact centers, deposit and payments operations, and supply chain. He reported directly to the Chairman and CEO and was instrumental in providing technology direction to the Executive Committee and the Board of Directors.  He chaired the firm’s strategic investment committee that oversaw investment decisions and benefits realization of those investments. 

Prior to joining SunTrust, Mr. Cheriyan was a Vice President / senior partner at IBM Global Business Services, where he served financial services clients and most recently led the Insurance Industry Practice.  Before joining IBM, he was a partner with PwC Management Consulting and served in leadership roles including leading global, industry and technology practices. In his consulting career, Cheriyan worked closely with several Fortune 500 companies in their business and technology transformations from strategy through execution – always delivering on measurable results.  In addition, he has led the growth of several successful consulting practices with revenue generating, management and delivery roles.

Mr. Cheriyan plays an active role in business and technology communities.  He serves on the Advisory Boards for growth stage start-ups - Tricentis, Fenergo, Mirantis and SkyTap - working on their growth / revenue generation committees.  He is an advisory partner to Insight Venture Partners Ignite Roundtables and chairs the InspireCIO innovation committee.  In addition, as SunTrust CIO he chaired the Financial Services Roundtable BITS Executive Advisory committee, and was member of the AT&T Client Advisory Committee and Presidents Advisory Committee for Oracle.

Mr. Cheriyan is the recipient of several industry awards – e.g., IDC CIO 100, Computerworld Premier 100 Leader, Enterprise CIO of the year.  He is Chairman, Technology Business Management (TBM) Council, on the Boards of Oglethorpe University, St Josephs Health System, Georgia CIO, Research Board and the Wall St. Journal CIO Network.

Mr. Cheriyan earned his Master of Science and Master of Philosophy Degrees in Management as well as a Bachelor of Science in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from Imperial College in London, UK.  He and his wife, Susan, have three children and live in Atlanta, Georgia.