special feature - Harrington Starr

special feature THW TRADING TECHNOLOGIST

THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT IN THE FEMALE FINTECH SECTOR

July/August 2015

RR INSIGHTS A ST

Is it easier to start a tech firm now? BY ELLIOT PARFITT

PLUS Networking Breakfast with Dave Coplin VISIT WWW.HARRINGTONSTARR.COM FOR WHITEPAPERS, SPECIAL REPORTS, INTERVIEWS, SALARY SURVEYS & THE LASTEST NEWS IN FINANCIAL SERVICES & COMMODITIES TECHNOLOGY

Hintech H O C U S

HARRINGTON STARR TALK TO THE SECTOR’S MOST EXCITING NAMES

■ TONY ARMOUR, MACLIN ARMOUR SOLUTIONS

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GLOBAL LEADERS IN FINANCIAL SERVICES AND COMMODITIES TECHNOLOGY RECRUITMENT 2

Contents 05

Market Overview

07

Fintech Focus: Tony Armour, Maclin Armour Solutions

10 12

STARR INSIGHTS Is it easier to start a tech firm now? By Elliot Parfitt Can a SAAS salesman succeed selling an enterprise solution? By James Hounslow

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FEATURE ~ Women in Fintech

43

FEATURE ~ From Fintech to Fintech Rec

53

Guest Feature: The Rise of Digihuman, by Dave Coplin, Microsoft UK

57

FEATURE ~ Networking Breakfast with Dave Coplin

62

MARKET NEWS & COMMENTARY Software vendors | Fintech/Disruptive Technology | Brokerages, Exchanges,Trading Houses, MTFs, Alternative Trading Venues | Network, infrastructure, service providers | Investment Banking | Asset/Wealth/Investment management & Hedge Funds | Consultancies

68

EVENTS, PUBLICATIONS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

72 73 74

Meet the Editorial Team About Harrington Starr Contact

GLOBAL LEADERS IN FINANCIAL SERVICES AND COMMODITIES TECHNOLOGY RECRUITMENT 0 3

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GLOBAL LEADERS IN FINANCIAL SERVICES AND COMMODITIES TECHNOLOGY RECRUITMENT 4

SARKET OVERVIEW A market overview from Harrington Starr’s Managing Director TOBY BABB

W

e are hugely excited by this issue of the Trading Technologist. For the first time we are now publishing every two months with a focus on more “industry led commentary” and we are delighted to have features from some of the most influential women in FinTech in this issue. We wanted to run a “women in FinTech special” to showcase the investment and growth of women in the London FinTech scene and have a superb spectrum of articles covering the future of FinTech and the issues that matter in the sector. Writing this on the day where the front page headlines are that David Cameron “vows to close the pay gap for women,” it is a firm belief of mine that FinTech is leading the way in placing increased diversity into its business agenda. David Cameron’s personal commitment to “consigning salary inequality to history by the time his two daughters start work” rings a chord. As a father of two girls (aged 2 and 6), the FinTech space has to be one of the most exciting spaces to point them

in their future careers. As role models continue to emerge from the sector and investment made into education in technology for both boys and girls, there are promising signs for us all to take encouragement from. It has been pleasing to see the incredible Eileen Burbidge appointed as the government’s special envoy for FinTech. Susanne Chisti (who has written in our sister publication the FinTech Capital) and Nicole Anderson have been making a big splash with FinTech Circle Innovate and another previous writer in the FTC Claire Cockerton’s Innovate Finance is shaking up the space. You can read their articles here: http://www.harringtonstarr.com/ downloads/the-fintech-capital-mag/. We are also fortunate to have eleven of the sector’s most influential females writing on all things FinTech in this copy including Danielle Ballardie, Alex Foster, Angie Walker, Caroline Davis, Chetna Bhatia, Joanne Smith, Caroline Tonkin, Petrina Steele, Susan Cooney, Jo Finnigan and Adizah Tejani. These are the inspirational role models and trailblazers who are helping to shape the FinTech Revolution and it is brilliant to read their commentary of regulation, women in technology and the future of technology in the sector.


SARKET OVERVIEW

We also wanted to conduct our own research into diversity in FinTech. We hold regular industry networking events, both through the FinTech Influencers and the FS Technology Breakfast, and it has always been clear to see that the industry, as it stands, is a male heavy population. These events are senior level networking opportunities and, over the last two years, the average percentage of women in the room has been less than 7% hilighting issues of a male dominated industry at a senior and executive level. At a mid to senior level (£60-120k salaries and our core demographic) our data in 2015 shows that in the first 6 months of the year 15% of the candidates who have been placed are female. In the second half of 2014 that figure was only 8%. Whilst improving, this remains far too low a figure and it is encouraging to see enthusiasm from our clients to bring greater gender balance to their teams. When looking at a “gender pay gap” there was no supporting evidence to suggest that this exists in FinTech from the data we have pulled. If anything, and particularly in the sales market, there was a slight financial lean in favour of women for a like for like hire in the data that we have studied. Again, it must be said this is too small a dataset to be a definitive picture of the industry but, having worked in the space for sixteen years, it is far from uncommon to see bigger salaries paid in order to secure greater diversity in a team. There are also numerous examples of major investment banks specifically seeking out women for senior roles. This is where it becomes important not to veer into positive discrimination. The best person for the job should still be the one chosen regardless of their gender. Efforts have certainly been made to ensure that FinTech becomes a viable and attractive career opportunity for ambitious women. A series of meetup groups have helped create strong networks and companies are recognising more and more that there are benefits from a diverse team. The role

models mentioned above are also critical. As we see more and more successful senior women in FinTech, more and more will follow. So what more can be done? It is important for companies to tailor the message appropriately. Businesses at an institutional level are getting this right with Goldman Sachs being a prime example. Putting gender diversity on the boardroom agenda is a must and part of that includes creating an employee value proposition that is attractive to both males and females alike. Benefits should reflect diversity and the cultural change needed in many technology teams should be driven rather than expected. Predominantly though this comes down to education. When the government creates academic programmes that create “work ready” technologists and ensure that young women are inspired and encouraged to see technology as a viable career path we will see a real sea change of revolution. We are also delighted in this issue to include a feature from the brilliant Dave Coplin, author, speaker and Microsoft UK Chief Envisioning Officer. Dave was the speaker at our 10th FS Technology Breakfast and you can also find a write up of that event later in these pages. As if that wasn’t enough we have an interview with Tony Armour of Maclin Armour Solutions and the latest news and market commentary from the mouths of the Harrington Starr team. We hope that you enjoy the new look magazine and thanks to all of the contributors. If there is anything that we can do to help or comments that you have on what you have read please get in touch or join the conversation on Twitter @HarringtonStarr.

Toby


FINTECH

FOCUS

HARRINGTON STARR TALK TO ONE OF FINTECH’S MOST EXCITING BUSINESSES

1 TONY ARMOUR Maclin Armour Solutions

www.investyourway.com

Tony Armour and is a leading consultant in FinTech, advising companies of their product and sales strategies.  Can you tell us about your business? I help B-to-B services and solutions companies improve sales and business performance. I formed Maclin Armour Solutions last year because I sensed a changing dynamic between companies and senior full time employees tasked with business development and growth. Both sides sometimes struggle with getting the formula right and creating effective “partnerships” that deliver results without the employee facing burn-out or the company becoming frustrated. I knew I had the experience and skills that could make a difference and deliver results through a model that would be cost effective for my clients and not only accelerate growth but also help to align the sales team with the board in a way that would help deliver sustainable improvements in business performance.  What has been your journey to your current position? Over the last twenty years I have held leadership positions for some of the world’s most successful services and solutions companies such as Thomson Reuters, KPMG, BearingPoint and most recently as Managing Director for the international Process Solutions business of DST Systems, a major US based Financial Services technology and BPO provider. DST is a great company and I enjoyed working for them for almost seven years but for some time I have been excited by the challenge of running my own business and resigned at the end of last year to fulfil that ambition.  What interested you in this space? When you work for big companies you eventually figure out which aspects of your career excite and enthuse you and I realised that the “BAU” aspects of most jobs were not among them;

solving problems and delivering change definitely were! I also wanted to make sure I leveraged the strengths I know I have (you would be amazed at how long it took me to figure those out!); for example, I know I have delivered success in my career not just by being “a good salesman” but mainly because I’m very analytical, a good strategist and diligent planner. These are skills, traits and disciplines needed by tech vendors and services companies many of whom are run by brilliant, creative people but who don’t always have the instincts and disciplines to channel those abilities effectively enough to deliver results.  How have you settled into the business? I have been very lucky to date and after eight months I am proud to say I have hit all my revenue and profitability targets so far, though I am far from complacent and know sometimes business will be tougher to come by. More importantly, I am pleased that I now have two client testimonials on my website and a named case study with a quote from the CEO of a major Risk & Security services company. If my clients are happy then I can sleep at night!  What lessons did you learn in your previous role? The importance of alignment between the people running the company (the board or owners) and those employed to execute their vision. I mean alignment both in the sense of having a shared purpose and understanding of the market and value proposition but also in terms of how they are organised and communicate. So often, at board level there is frustration with performance and a focus on the sales people, their skills, their productivity or sometimes a focus on the product; sometimes none of these elements are at fault but the various moving parts are “misaligned” and the result is underperformance. The key is being ruthless and diligent about the root cause analysis before planning change.


 Where do you see the opportunity for you in the UK and European market? Mostly with the UK operations of medium sized technology vendors and service companies. Most of my experience lies with consulting firms, BPO services companies and solutions vendors serving the financial services markets. However, my biggest client at the moment is in the risk and security business for commercial shipping and super-yachts. Although that’s a type of company I would not have actively targeted, I am “Making a positive difference” in the words of their CEO and enjoying working with their team.  What are some of the major challenges facing the industry that your company overcomes? Firstly, senior management often sense underperformance without either being able to quantify it or identify the causes of it. I have four decades of experience in doing just that. Sometimes the reasons and the treatment are unpalatable but I always promise my clients the full and uncensored facts and opinions. Secondly, the most difficult hires to get right, are those of senior sales people and sales directors. I can deliver a service in a short space of time for a fraction of the costs and risk associated with hiring an experienced full-time resource, to analyse the challenges and set the right course ready for the right hires to step on-board

I knew I had the experience and skills that could make a difference and deliver results through a model that would be cost effective for my clients.

when the time is right.  How does your company differentiate itself from its competitors? I bring a pragmatic approach. Four decades of real-life experience delivering results for B-to-B businesses mean I have the instincts not to mention the skills and knowledge needed to figure out what needs to be done differently and better. Yes, there is a structure and a “science” to what I do but every situation is different, EVERY situation; my clients are not fed boiler-plate solutions nor do they suffer from reports riddled with jargon. Also, after the analysis and strategy phases, I am willing to stick around to help deliver results!  Where do you see the future of the market heading? Increasingly, I see major B-to-B organisations growing more willing to use external resources to solve their business performance problems. It used to be that companies wanted to “own” the senior people tasked with addressing these elements of their business but that perspective is changing as business leaders realise that employee dynamic is often flawed and “externals” often bring skills and experience they need to be successful.  What do you feel are the biggest obstacles facing the industry? The world continues to get more not less complex. Identifying the right ways to go to market, the right market sectors to target and how to align their resources to deliver results are tough challenges for all companies. Figuring out why performance dips and changing course while keeping the plane flying, is even tougher. Regulatory changes come thick and fast for all industry sectors, not just FS and whilst technology investment is often the answer to that challenge, technology complexity also then becomes a headache and a growing cost. Most of all, the workforce dynamic is shifting; employees are more mobile, less loyal (as are customers) and the hierarchical organisation models of the past are changing; success today is about equality not hierarchy as smart business leaders realise that collaborating with smart employees is more productive than simply “telling people what to do”.


How do you plan to overcome those obstacles? I believe I can help organisations with agreeing the right strategies for engaging with their markets and driving profitable growth but also in subtly helping them to better leverage the abilities of their key people in order to make those improvements sustainable. I often find companies full of talented people; individually they have great abilities. What companies need to succeed is “capability” and “CAPAbilities” are only formed when those individual “Abilities” are properly organised and focused.  What makes your company an employer of choice? Maclin Armour Solutions is a small company with two FTE and a number of associates and collaborators. People and organisations want to form alliances with MAS because they know client groups want to leverage the capabilities we bring but also because they know I have an open and honest style of doing business with people.  What are your plans for 2015 and beyond? For 2015 I will continue to focus on delivering great outcomes for my existing clients. This will be my first full year of business so I am keen to finish the year profitable and with happy clients giving me positive testimonials! In 2016 I intend to do more of the same; leveraging my experience and skills to help clients improve business performance and drive profitable growth!  What areas of financial services do you see as most ripe for disruption by technology? Those most challenged by regulatory pressures and ever more demanding clients; that’s pretty much every insurer, retail bank and wealth/asset manager! Technology solutions and clever application of them will play an increasingly central role in addressing these challenges. This is not lost on any of these organisations and the old days of investing in monolithic platforms from the biggest providers and five year change programs, are gone. People are looking now at disruptive technologies being brought to market by small, nimble, specialist companies and even the biggest are buying

Organisations want to form alliances with MAS because they know I have an open and honest style of doing business with people.

the right solutions from start-ups!  What do you think the financial services sector will look like in five years’ time? Much more agile in thought, organisation and in responding to changes in their operating environment. The challenges presented by complexified legacy infrastructures won’t have gone away but new technologies will offer more nimble ways around them. Disruptive technologies are removing barriers to entry and there will be a lot of new names in all parts of the market, small companies empowered by new technologies that don’t take $100m and five years to implement so the market will be more competitive and that’s great for consumers!

www.maclinarmour.com/


INSIGH R R TS A T S Is it easier to start a tech firm now? By Elliot Parfitt

Welcome to the latest article in the Harrington Starr blogs section. While I usually write around the areas of buy / sell side trading technology, I am throwing the net wider on this occasion to include all manner of technology firms. This has been prompted (as is often the case) by numerous conversations in which I have been told the same (or at least very similar) information which in this instance has led me to examine the ease with which a technology vendor may be born. Not being a ‘tech entrepreneur’ myself may lead to some assumption on my part but please don’t hesitate to get in touch with your experiences & thoughts. This blog is based purely around my conversations with those who have started or are in the process of starting technology firms, those who purchase from them or in some instances purchase the firms themselves, or those who work for them.

are now effectively disposable. I realise I am labouring a point here and could be in danger of this becoming a ‘things were better back in the day’ or ‘state the obvious by stating change’ article however, to return to the purpose, how specifically is it easier to setup, develop and grow a technology firm now? Again – profitability. The last 12-24 months have seen massive changes in the availability, cost, quality and usability of previously expensive technology services and there is a greater prevalence of providers who now compete on price increasing availability and the cycle continues. The storage of data is at such a low cost now that Dropbox derive more of a benefit from you giving them a signed up friend than they would a cost from providing you with free data storage. Does this mean that growing their advertising and increasing their user numbers is actually the primary business aim rather than charging for the core service (to draw a parallel, Odeon Cinemas has long been in the food and beverage business where it actually makes its money, it just has to go through the inconvenience of showing films to attract the grazing masses)?

To more accurately assess where changes & improvements are being made, it is useful to consider the main factor in the success or failure of any business – profitability. In the most basic sense – does it cost you less to deliver your service / system / goods / idea to your client than they are willing to pay for it? Particularly pertaining to technology providers, profitability has come from being able to package and deliver your product to your market place in a manner that allows scalability & profitable growth. History is littered with examples where the technically stronger or ‘best’ product lost the race because of a cheaper lower quality alternative (see Betamax vs VHS) or household names failed because of a lack of ability or desire to adapt (see Kodak) or examples where profitability and practicality did not register in the progression of what sounded like a great idea (nuclear powered personal vehicles) – in any example I can think of (perhaps with the exception of Kodak) these failures could have been success had the companies involved been able to procure the necessary materials at a dramatically lower cost. The prevalence of mass global export & transportation has allowed the car industry to explode their production, the availability and relative affordability of plastics & polymers has driven a dramatic increase in everyday products which

It is now more possible than ever to run systems with significant processing power, ‘best in class’ data transmission & availability, global connection, security and data storage without actually owning any more than a single company laptop. Amazon made the seemingly sensible decision to provide Cloud services (Amazon Cloud) and are by all accounts doing an excellent job. Quite how much hardware they have needed to purchase up front (e.g. leveraging their already successful revenue streams to dominate a new market area) to provide these services is unclear but there is a lot of praise for their ‘pay and play’ model which allows members to log on to a powerful, secure and available test environment, harnessing processing power which would a short time ago have


represented a substantial part of a fledgling tech firms budget for a minimal and affordable cost. Similar examples abound in the network provision, security and infrastructure areas – all this combines to mean that tech-savvy entrepreneurs perhaps do not need quite the business planning, investment generating abilities that were once critical. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Will this ease of setup mean that more and more technologies, systems, solutions, apps, widgets are brought to market in an inexorable march of innovation or will huge number of the same product be available with the only differences existing around marketing and advertising? Will this increased ability to get technical products to market actually increase the size of the market at all or will bad ideas still fall by the wayside or will there be (as we have seen in some areas of the trading technology space) ever increasing numbers of competitors into more and more crowded market places – if this is the case what are the follow on ramifications for consumer tech, commercial systems and FinTech? I would suggest that generally ‘more’ in a market place tends to be good for consumers (be they individuals or corporations) provided that vendors can maintain a belief in the value of what they are offering – cheaper cheaper cheaper doesn’t always lead to better better better! Looking forward, we will be keeping an eye on who is providing the services, how are these companies developing their offerings and services? Will the ‘enabling’ part of the industry be dominated by a few large players or is there room for smaller companies to get involved as well? If you are involved in the world of technology we would love to hear your thoughts – please get in touch. HS


INSIGH R R TS A T S Can a SAAS salesman succeed selling an enterprise solution? By James Hounslow This a question I would like to throw out to all the Sales Managers and Sales Directors out there who have the life experience working with the Sales Executives. I ask this question because all too often I hear a hiring manager reject a strong cv because they have not sold a large enough product and the deal cycles they have experienced is too short. I understand there are quite big differences between a SAAS option and an enterprise option but does this mean the same Sales Executive can’t sell both.

market knowledge with a consultative sales approach to me is the win. A product can be learnt and the USPs can be tailored to suit the product you are selling. I would be very interested to know and understand the consensus of opinion for this subject and see if there are any other thoughts.

My understanding of a good Sales Executive, is someone who knows their sector inside out, who can listen to a client and create a solution for the client’s needs. They have the ability to network through a business to build relationships with all the individuals that may have a say in the sales. These people are anyone from a business analyst through to C-level managers. Marrying strong

If you have sold both SAAS and enterprise solutions how did you find moving from one sell to another? What difficulties did you find, how long did it take for you to get up to speed with the new sales process? Looking back would you have made the decision to switch or stay with what you knew, and finally why did you make the decision to switch what was your thought process behind this? HS

I would like to hear from people who may have a different opinion and I would be keen to understand and discuss them.

My understanding of a good Sales Executive, is someone who knows their sector inside out, who can listen to a client and create a solution for the client’s needs.


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G L O Web: B A L L www.WeAreAdaptive.com EADERS IN FINANCIAL SERVICES AND COMMODITIES TECHNOLOGY RECRUITMENT 1 3

Women in Fintech GLOBAL LEADERS IN FINANCIAL SERVICES AND COMMODITIES TECHNOLOGY RECRUITMENT 1 4

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Angie Walker Director, Ignite G2M

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Caroline Davis Strategy Consultant, Verlylee Limited

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Chetna Bhatia VP Partnerships and Services, Aspect Enterprise Solutions

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Joanne Smith Chief Executive & Creative Officer, The Consulting Consortium & RecordSure  Caroline Tonkin Director of Sales & Marketing, Quarternion Risk  Petrina Steele EMEA VP, Business Development, Equinix.  Danielle Ballardie Head of Cash Markets, Deputy Head of Markets & Global Sales, Euronext  Susan Cooney Client Services & Marketing Executive, MahiFX  Jo Finnigan Director, Cognising Ltd  Adizah Tejani Head of Ecosystem Development, Level39

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Alexandra Foster Global Head of Strategy & Business Development, Financial Technology Services, BT


Women in Fintech

FinTech for regulation – mind the GAP!!!!

Angie Walker | Director, Ignite G2M We live in a technological age. Across many industries nimble, innovative and exciting new entrants are being leveraged to push the boundaries of performance, enhance service levels and to reduce cost of ownership. Historically the Financial Services industry, hamstrung by the rigours of client protection and regulatory burden, have been slow to adopt fledgling players. However, increasingly stringent and prescriptive regulatory requirements are prompting a new approach. The so-called ‘disruptors’ are being beckoned from the shadows into the light. In this article, Angie Walker of FinTech go-to-market specialist Ignite G2M discusses the growing appetite within the Capital Markets community to embrace new technology and services, in the quest for sourcing affordable regulatory compliance solutions. Almost 30 years on from Big Bang (27th Oct 1986) the market faces the biggest of all operational changes with the introduction of MiFID2, a cross market, multi-asset, front to back regulatory revolution that requires ALL market participants, buy side & sell side alike, to clearly demonstrate appropriate levels of conduct and operation control over their entire business flow. Furthermore, MiFID2 earmarks a shift from a “principles” based approach to regulation as witnessed with the introduction of MiFID1 in 2008 to a definitively “prescriptive” approach. As a result of this latest regulatory change and almost 10 years on from the inception of MiFID1, the challenges that ALL market participants now face are far greater than ever before. The evolution of the markets instigated by this far reaching MiFID1 directive, prompted a new generation of regulatory tech challenges in the trading space. This


Women in Fintech saw the birth of Smart Order Routers, Risk modules, Best-Ex and industry endorsement of ALGO performance benchmarking. In Europe alone the pace of introduction of new regulatory changes/obligations has been relentless with MAD1, MAD2, MAR, MiFID2, MiFIR, EMIR, BCBS 239 and more …all being mandated in quick succession. Consequently, and as a direct result of these mandated changes Compliance, Risk, Controls and the technology underpinning them are impacted by every nuance of the regulations, in some instances in a very material way. As a direct result of these growing tech Today the key financial centres challenges, between 2009–2013 the cost of compliance alone around the globe offer a huge across the TOP 10 Global hunting ground of financial Investment Banks alone was institutions along with a wealth of estimated at a staggering $4bn and continues to grow highly skilled and seasoned FinTech exponentially year on year as we resources, so not surprisingly these approach MiFID2.

very same locations have become the birthplace of and home to many of these new and very promising FinTech companies.

Lengthy investigations and exceptionally large fines threaten both the profitability and reputation of the major players not only at the entity level but more recently individual professionals will and are being held accountable for poor and inappropriate conduct. So not surprisingly a large number of market participants are looking to innovative new technologies for the answers to these very challenging and complex issues. It’s simply not enough to think that one needs only to comply, but in order to differentiate ones business and thrive in this increasingly challenging environment, participants must find smart and creative ways of transforming these regulatory burdens into key business differentiators. Often backed by the most innovative of the Investment Banks, a fast growing number of FinTech Incubators and Accelerators are buzzing with new technologies. Since 2008 the global annual investment in FinTechs has tripled to over $3bn/pa and is currently on track to grow to a breath taking $8Bn/pa by 2018. Today the key financial centres around the globe offer a huge hunting ground of financial institutions along with a wealth of highly skilled and seasoned FinTech resources, so not surprisingly these very same locations have become the birthplace of and home to many of these new and very promising FinTech companies. Given the exponential growth in FinTech investment in providing compliance/regulatory related solutions over recent years it’s no great surprise that an increasing number of FinTechs are joining the race to find answers to the fundamental challenges underpinning these regulatory changes as/when they occur. For example, one of the current challenges under scrutiny is the one of “time stamping” and in relation to the market participants need to ensure (and clearly demonstrate) timeliness, accuracy and completeness of ALL transaction flows. Whilst previously this might have been a perennial challenge, under the new MiFIR regulations, (Articles 7 and 50) its set to become a far more onerous and mandatory requirement from the outset for timestamping to millisecond accuracy across the whole order lifecycle, from grandparent order creation to settlement.


Women in Fintech The principal behind this uptick in regulation is that, by introducing this level of event resolution across all systems it allows individual transaction to be reconstituted in order to prove market conditions at every point during that transaction’s lifecycle. What’s important though is that the underlying principle driving these requirements are either in order to achieve a widespread view of the same data or to actually account for data points within that transaction flow relative to other events/market data. Perhaps, at this point it’s safe to dispel the myth that it is not the actual time stamping to microsecond or millisecond (or even nanosecond) accuracy that is necessarily important here, what is important is the ability to synchronise with extreme accuracy a number of events and the relativity of those actions to each other at that moment in time. However, this poses three significant industry challenges namely; 1) The need to reconcile the flows across many disparate platforms, front-to-back 2) The need to timestamp to 1uSec on HFT and 1mSec accuracy on all other transaction based flows, across a synchronised timeline 3) The need for a single consistent instrument model and “golden source” of client and instrument data across all platforms/flows Big Data to the rescue one might think. Well, whilst undoubtedly the data to be collected and stored will be a huge challenge in its own right, the source and normalisation of that data is a far greater issue to be solved right now! For ALL market participants involved in electronic trading, being able to rationalise and consolidate transaction based flows/data from disparate systems, working to different protocols and often in completely separate infrastructural environments, in an attempt to ensure that the underlying transactions within each flow is time-stamped and to a single source is a tall order for sure. So how do we solve that problem in a way that is both consist cross-asset/cross-flow and extensible across systems over time? The first step needs to be to standardise industry wide the data model by which that data is sourced, processed and stored. That said, I suspect that no single party/industry participant is equipped to do this in isolation as it needs to be agnostic in order to be effective. What is required here is an industry wide collaboration/consortia to sponsor and endorse a move to a single standard “superset” data model cross asset, cross market globally and with a view to adoption industry wide. Let’s assume for one moment that this were indeed the case and that the whole industry had adopted this single data model. The problem then shifts to the next big challenge which is that no single part of the work flow front to back contains all of the elements of the required data “superset” needed to guarantee completeness across the whole flow. In order to resolve this rather thorny issue a single global provider of that golden source of superset data needs to emerge. Finally, assuming we have the data model and our golden source in place then in order to correlate events with accuracy and ensure timeliness of flows throughout the entire transactions life cycle one needs to ensure that all associated applications within that flow remain synchronised to the same master time-stamping source. This is potentially the biggest of all challenges and requires an industry agnostic solution in order to be effective. So, perhaps the approach here is to source, interpret and store data directly


Women in Fintech from the network (rather than the applications themselves),as this significantly reduced the dependency by (1) time-stamping each packet of transaction data as it passes through each hop enterprise-wide, core-to-edge which is now technically achievable and (2) to interpret content of each packet at each hop of the flow and in order to ensure both the appropriateness of content and the completeness/accuracy of the underlying data. Adaptors/collectors allow you to access and interpret the packet’s contents completely independently of the platforms on which the transactions are processed ensuring no degradation to that transactional flow in terms of latency, throughput or performance. In summary, by combining a single data model, golden source and time-stamping methodology front to back, across ALL transactional flows it is feasible that a market participant could meet this latest wave of regulatory challenges with a single cost effective and industrial solution that clearly differentiates themselves within their peer group for having resolved those challenges in a robust and demonstrable way firm-wide. For the market participants, the lead up to MiFID2 is set to be a very busy period indeed with significant technological and operate level changes required in order to achieve conformance. For those FinTechs already well positioned to resolve some/all of these complex challenges and in a timely fashion, it is without doubt an incredible opportunity for yet further exponential growth. For the select few that are actually in that position today you might even call it the perfect storm. HS

This is potentially the biggest of all challenges and requires an industry agnostic solution in order to be effective.


Women in Fintech

The three Ps of FinTech start-up growth

Caroline Davis | Independent Strategy Consultant, Verlylee Limited Many factors contribute to the success of a start-up, just ask 10 successful entrepreneurs and you’ll get 10 different answers, but for me focus on the three Ps; People, Product, Planning. With the right mix your start-up will be on the road to success. Let’s look at each of these in turn. People: As a FinTech start-up your salaries can’t compete with the banks but by creating an entrepreneurial environment you have a strong chance of attracting highly skilled, motivated people. In start-ups, it’s about the right blend of resources who can be flexible to deal with the unexpected surprises which inevitably occur along the way. An additional bonus is that the skills of your team will develop in ways they hadn’t considered which presents opportunities for them and you. Creating a trusting environment which allows people to shine and demonstrate their worth can often be a bigger motivator than money alone so don’t underestimate the value of empowerment – plus the more you can delegate the more time you have for driving the company forward. Whilst you may be paying great bonuses, share options can be a simple way to ensure long-term engagement and give the whole team a stake in future success. Planning: You have a vision and a business plan so take that plan and stick to it. Easier said than done maybe? In the melee you can get distracted and veer away from the original vision so don’t forget to keep reminding yourself of your initial goals. The plan should evolve as you understand your market better but beware of costly tangents. Everything you do should be aimed at getting you closer to the end goal not further away.


Women in Fintech But don’t forget to also measure everything. How else do you know if you are on track? Make sure that the plan contains a measureable set of KPIs from day one and your team are aware of their own deliverables as well as those of their colleagues. Product: Of course you have a great product! The business case says so, so it must be true! You may have done your market research but until someone pays you for your services, your product is almost worthless. The key is to constantly ask for feedback. Know what your potential customers want at all times and don’t be scared to go back repeatedly to validate this. You’ll learn nothing about the market from the inside of the office, so get out on the streets and find out what your market needs. Chances are you’ll be presented with more ideas that you know what to do with. Stick to the plan but use the knowledge you gain to understand the minimum sellable product, then make sure that all your people are focused on delivering this and constantly reiterate the core objectives and the vision. It’s easy to overlook the successes which happen in the middle of the non-stop race towards the next goal, but do take time to celebrate the things which you do well and don’t beat yourself up over a bad few days. A couple of drinks can help the whole team to let off steam, just make sure you’re on hand to buy the bacon butties the next morning. With the right product, a talented group of people and an executable plan, you are always on the front foot. Now you just need a dash of luck and you’re on your way! HS

As a FinTech startup your salaries can’t compete with the banks but by creating an entrepreneurial environment you have a strong chance of attracting highly skilled, motivated people.


Women in Fintech

Women in FinTech

Chetna Bhatia | VP Partnerships and Services, Aspect Enterprise Solutions The Financial Technology (FinTech) sector is booming today because of new market players, business models and new innovations. With changing times, what needs to change is the mind-set of the organisations empowering this change. This year's International Women’s Day sparked a debate at the Innovate Finance Global Summit around the lack of females holding board-level positions in the FinTech sector and elsewhere. According to one of the panellists as 51% of the audience for FinTech products are women and they are the early adopters, the next generation of products needs to appeal to this mass audience. In my experience, women make better investment decisions, so are more likely to use the products in a more productive way. So it is essential that women are involved in the design, packaging and usability of FinTech products. The current situation is not reflective of this fact and women represent a significantly lower percentage of the constituents on the management teams of FinTech organisations. There is a need to strive for more mixed gender on board of any organisation as it draws better performance. During the debate on International Women’s Day, it came out very evidently that organisations with a diverse board and mixed gender perform 15% better than the organisations without such diversity. A recent look at the S&P 500 index found only 26 (0.05%) have female CEOs, while lower managerial positions such as vicepresident, of which around 10,000 available roles exist, approximately 600 (0.06%) are filled by women. There is a clear need to develop very strong professional development programmes to help elevate women who sit in the managerial or director-level positions into leadership positions and decision-making positions.


Women in Fintech A major factor in recent times is a radical shift in the way business leaders perceive what makes a good corporate board. In particular there is a growing urgency to improve the gender balance. A modern, successful company needs directors with a range of experiences, perspectives and personalities. This is the only way to ensure that it has a wide pool of expertise and experience to draw on, and to reduce the danger of homogenous thinking.

This year's International Women’s Day sparked a debate at the Innovate Finance Global Summit around the lack of females holding board-level positions in the FinTech sector and elsewhere. I have worked at Aspect Enterprise Solutions (Aspect) for almost six years now. Aspect is the leading global provider of a web-based commodity trading, risk management and data management application for front, middle and back-office operations. It’s the only integrated, all-in-one platform delivered as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) in the Cloud, which enables rapid deployment, controlled costs & immediate return on investment. Building upon a flexible infrastructure and technology platform, with an innovative development methodology, Aspect’s development team has produced a range of webbased applications, customization services and enterprise integration solutions. As all other organisations, initially Aspect had a male-dominated ‘monotone’ board, but about five years back our CEO decided to make the management team more inclusive and balanced. As it stands now three of the five members of the executive team are women and 49% of middle management are women responsible for development, testing and product roadmap. The executive team also exhibits cultural diversity having representation from the USA, UK, Canada, India and South Africa – five people, five nationalities. Our company has seen growth in terms of revenue, profitability and product quality. With an eye for detail, women have brought not only quantitative improvement to the bottom line of the company but also brought a qualitative improvement in working environment, streamlining processes, customer interaction, employee turnaround and the products itself. Drawing from personal experience, I feel that having a diverse team with gender balance brings in value addition to any organisation and contributes to an overall positive impact. HS


Women in Fintech

Bridging the gender gap in FinTech

Joanne Smith | Chief Executive & Creative Officer, The Consulting Consortium & RecordSure We are experiencing exciting times in the FinTech sector. Business is booming thanks to new market players and innovations that are driving the industry forward. However, in terms of gender equality and diversity, there is still work to be done and improvements to be made. Statistics show that female entrepreneurs currently make up just 17% of the FinTech sector and the number of female CIOs has remained at around 14% per year for the past decade. An independent report published in February of this year by Women in Enterprise champion, Lorely Burt MP, found that although the number of female-run SMEs has increased, more work needs to be done in order to close the gender gap between men and women. The report, Inclusive Support for Women in Enterprise, found that women entrepreneurs could play a bigger role in the UK economy, creating jobs and boosting growth as well as reducing gender inequality. The FinTech industry is enjoying an exciting period of growth, and in order to keep this momentum going we need to ensure that a diverse pool of talent is in place. We need to be doing more to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit among young women and promote the FinTech sector as an innovative and exciting industry to break into. In the year 2000 I started my first business The Consulting Consortium as I realised there was a need for a compliance firm offering proportionate, bespoke advice. It is now the largest independently-owned compliance consultancy in the UK and I’m pleased to say that females account for over half of our staff. I am now focused on ensuring my new


Women in Fintech venture RecordSure radically alters the way companies address compliance to protect consumers and prevent future mis-selling scandals. It is a great feeling to be working on something that no-one else in the market is able to do. I am passionate about encouraging young women to think big and realise their dreams. Financial services and compliance are both traditionally very male dominated sectors an interesting and challenging by-product of this is gentlemen are occasionally prone to underestimate a woman’s ability and try to take advantage of what they see as someone incapable of understanding the nuances of business as they do. This is an irritating challenge, but one that is very easily and quickly overcome, once they realise just how capable women can be! Young women need strong role models to look up to, and fortunately the number of female trailblazers in the FinTech sector is on the increase including inspirational ladies such as Susanne Chisti of FINTECH Circle, Claire Cockerton of Innovate Finance, Wendy Jephson of Sybenetix and Paulina Sygulska of GrantTree who have all founded their own FinTech businesses.

Young women need strong role models to look up to, and fortunately the number of female trailblazers in the FinTech sector is on the increase

The newspaper City AM issues a weekly update to its ‘FinTech Most Influential Powerlist’ that includes the movers, the shakers, the doers and the people to know in the world of London FinTech right now. This week there were just twenty women in the top 100 list.

For this reason we need to do more to encourage entrepreneurship from a young age. We need to encourage young women to believe that they can set up their own businesses and that they can succeed in traditionally male-dominated industries like finance and technology. The UK is the FinTech capital of the world – and for good reason. We have a strong financial services sector and a fantastic pool of multi-talented entrepreneurs and innovators who are leading the way. In order to sustain this, we need greater diversity to keep our industry as fresh and exciting as possible. In short, we have come a long way, but there is still progress to be made in order to truly bridge the gender gap. With over 20 years’ experience in the financial services industry, Joanne has made a name for herself as an innovator with a passion for compliance. Joanne has built her award-winning company The Consulting Consortium into the UK’s largest independent regulatory and compliance consultancy. Joanne is also the founder of RecordSure, an innovative solution to record and analyse the interactions between front-line staff and customers, enabling firms to monitor and improve the quality and compliance of their customer-facing functions. HS


Women in Fintech

Regulation: With MiFID II and the Wave of Regulation continually hitting the banks coupled to the large gaps in capacity and capability to deal with this, what are the core challenges? How can they be overcome? Where are great examples of innovation around tech solutions for regulation?

Caroline Tonkin | Director of Sales & Marketing, Quarternion Risk Core technologies currently in use cannot meet the demands of the regulators in the required timescales – banks are needing to rethink their reporting paradigms in order to cope with the onslaught of regulations. Key elements that banks are struggling to achieve in meeting regulatory reporting include: ● Streamlining and aggregating data in ways not done before, to the lowest level of detail ● Managing data of different types in different jurisdictions ● Achieving transparency. This last is probably the hardest – existing systems can maybe be extended to cope with the first two, but legacy “black box” applications will need wholesale rewrite. Visionary banks are seizing the opportunity to not only tick the box for the regulators – but to make business advantage out of surfing what Tony Coppellotti of StoneRock Advisors - specialists in FinTech innovation - calls the “true wave of disruption” of new capabilities. Here are some examples of use of technology to overcome the challenges identified above:


Women in Fintech ● Aggregating data - using Big Data, a concept from the internet: banks are all impelled by BCBS239 to make their risk data aggregation coherent and transparent. Big Data enables management of structured and unstructured data, and does it faster - an example being MongoDB’s technology with which, over just 2 weeks, MetLife created a working prototype of a system that pulled together every single relevant piece of customer information from over 70 different systems – a boon for regulatory reporting. ● Managing data – using blockchain technology, a concept behind the bitcoin: decentralizes the control process: Nasdaq has started working on blockchain technology in its trading arm to “provide extensive integrity, audit ability, governance…” according to a release from Nasdaq. Given that regulatory reporting for most banks involves audit ability over just about every activity in every jurisdiction, this is an obvious application – watch this space! ● Transparency – using open source: the favoured approach of many technology innovators, the transparency that typically accompanies open source credentials is a boon to regulatory reporting. Most banks have legacy systems that have built up over many years, but which were never designed for transparency – and can’t have transparency thrust upon them without substantial effort. Many banks worldwide have for some time used Quantlib – the open source library of transparent financial pricing models – for e.g. model validation and testing. They are comfortable with Quantlib; it is in use in many other banks. Now that transparent model validation is required to achieve, for example, Basel IMM compliance, use of Quantlib is an obvious choice for forward-thinking banks, and for FinTech companies such as Quaternion Risk Management (whose proprietary QRE risk engine is used by a number of banks in order to achieve regulatory sign off, either as the primary system or for model validation of their own systems) to integrate into their proprietary technology (why reinvent the wheel if it already exists, is freely available, is liked and is in common use?). This is all down to speed of development with Quantlib, and bank – and regulator - acceptance. HS

Most banks have legacy systems that have built up over many years, but which were never designed for transparency – and can’t have transparency thrust upon them without substantial effort.


Women in Fintech

Interconnection: Transforming London’s FinTech sector

Petrina Steele | EMEA VP, Business Development, Equinix London is a growing hub for Europe’s finest FinTech start-ups, with 24 of the FinTech50 originating from the UK capital. The big data revolution has led to the proliferation of FinTech companies coming to market seeking to meet the growing demand for diverse feature and content rich financial applications; satisfying opportunities in mobile payment, electronic trading and risk evaluation platforms. The industry, reported by UKTI to be worth £20 billion annually to the UK economy, has defined itself through innovation in speed and connectivity to develop partner ecosystems, new products and a raft of new revenue streams. Whilst large banks and financial services firms have struggled to adapt owing to centralised IT structures, the FinTech industry is at the forefront of pioneering digital mobility, bridging the challenges faced by traditional institutions through big data, cloud and interconnection solutions. Given the size of the FinTech market, with further room for growth and sustained innovation, a visible trend of heavy investment from the major financial players in FinTech companies is emerging. Eager to remain competitive and meet demand for FinTech services, banks and wealth management firms are looking for IT infrastructure models that allow them to quickly connect with customers, partners and service providers to provide a better Quality of Experience (QOE) for user’s access real time data.


Women in Fintech To profit from the digital revolution, these traditional organisations must meet and exceed the IT agility, data security and computing challenges by moving from a systemsof-record to user-centric system of engagement edge compute model, in order to provide next generation critical financial applications. It is in these traits that the FinTech industry excels, exemplifying the characteristics required to navigate the big data minefield - revolutionising a sector where speed, security and innovation are vital components. Through adopting a more agile IT architecture, new products and revenue streams can be realised in banking and corporate finance solutions within capital markets, electronic payments, retail banking, wealth management and personal finance. As such, alongside the trend for acquisition and investment, there is also growing cooperation between traditional banks and FinTech companies. Equinix global data centre colocation and interconnection solutions now serve as a critical edge computing and IT mobility partner providing a catalyst for technology innovation, new disruptive growth, increased global reach and enhanced digital collaboration between these businesses. Equinix assist banks, wealth managers and Fintech players to re-invent their IT architectures to drive incomparable latency speeds, improved application performance and real time data analytics. This is achieved through the facilitation of an Interconnection Oriented ArchitectureTM – a transformative enterprise approach connecting people, locations, clouds and data. By decentralising enterprise work flows to create hubs and specialist ecosystems nearer to users, Equinix are leading an interconnected era that enables banks and Fintech businesses to develop a new suite of products and services.

London is a growing hub for Europe’s finest FinTech start-ups, with 24 of the FinTech50 originating from the UK capital.

This interconnected model provides a highly secure physical connectivity between ecosystem participants, but it also helps businesses significantly reduce TCO, whilst simultaneously reducing latency, and increasing performance and productivity capabilities demanded in the Fintech segment, whilst also fulfilling the product and revenue innovation opportunities afforded by a big data market forecast by IDC to reach $41.5 billion by 2018. HS


Women in Fintech

Will the next Steve Jobs be a chick?!

Danielle Ballardie | Head of Cash Markets, Deputy Head of Markets & Global Sales, Euronext Will the next Steve Jobs be a chick?! Perhaps! I know several female role models in corporate life, so many that I can count them on my, oh hold on…. fingers & toes….ahem. Seriously there are loads but there could be so many more! Does gender diversity really make a difference? I think so. Why? I’ve been asked that a lot lately…why is it important, why does it matter? There are all sorts of reasons that cover a broad range of factors: socio-political, shareholder value & return, risk management, client mirroring, cultural strength, innovation, the value of equality. From a business standpoint the most important is compelling evidence that a more gender diverse workforce generates better results, consistently. This quote by James Surowiecki says it all: “Diversity and independence are important because the best collective decisions are the product of disagreement and contest, not consensus or compromise.” What’s the issue? There are several issues. Despite women representing roughly 50% of the population and that in the UK a higher number of women now attend university than men, the proportion of women working in Finance is low and becomes miniscule in senior management. Graduate intakes in Finance are rarely close to 50/50 meaning there is an imbalance from the outset. According to Oliver Wyman (in 2014) research covering 150 of the world’s major financial companies showed that only 13% of EXCO members are women and 4% of CEOs are women. Even outside the financial spectrum this figure does not improve,


Women in Fintech Google published its diversity stats showing that only 18% of its workforce are women. There is progress, in the UK female board representation for FTSE 100 companies has increased to 23.5%, almost doubling in four years. Change is more notable in countries where quotas have been introduced and in those with public targets and the support of several women’s networks. Let’s be clear, not all women want to get to the top and those that do absolutely want to do so on merit alone. Our focus needs to be on the overall workforce at all levels to create a more diverse and inclusive corporate culture with equal treatment of employees regardless of gender (or any other form of diversity).

Male dominance, repression, unconscious bias and gender stereotyping and the fact that sexism is still rife also contribute to the challenges faced by women in the workplace. In addition, although girls often achieve higher grades than boys in their academic results and enter the professional workforce at the same age, there is a difference in the amount they are paid. Alarmingly, the UN says it will take 70 years to close the gender pay gap based on the current slow pace of improvement. That’s not fair or acceptable. Who’s setting the pay in the UK? Typically white males that flourish with unconscious bias towards other white males (that’s an oversimplification but you get my point). What’s holding women back? Sometimes it’s the women themselves due to lack of confidence, inexperience, fear, cultural dynamics, insecure competition, a desire for greater fulfilment, time commitments to people/activities outside work, a strong sense of whole life rather than being “The Provider” and a deep need for authenticity. Male dominance, repression, unconscious bias and gender stereotyping and the fact that sexism is still rife also contribute to the challenges faced by women in the workplace. 1 in 4 women in the UK are reported to be affected by domestic abuse. That’s a meaningful representation of staff in any large organisation. How does that affect the interpersonal dynamic in team work and in boss/senior management relationships? The reality is men too are held back by similar reasons (although notably less sexism!) but they are in the majority at work and the dynamic is very different. What’s bringing women forward? Raw talent, intellectual power, intuition, empathy, education, innate leadership skills, organisational savvy, ambition and many more attributes. Thankfully many people, of both genders, see all those positives and know the highly valuable contribution women can make in life and to any organisation and are actively supporting them. Targets, quotas, corporate and government policies/initiatives, growing use & acceptance of flexible working and technology advancements as well as men taking more responsibility for childcare are all helping to encourage more women to pursue long-term careers.


Women in Fintech What does that mean for FinTech in the UK? Opportunity. Progress. Innovation. Billionaire investor Warren Buffet has been quoted as saying “What a waste of human talent – 50pc of the population was pushed off into the corner for 200 years [….] I see how far we've come using only half the talent […] and now we're getting to the point that we are using 100pc. It makes me optimistic but we still have a way to go". Women are increasingly attracted to working in technology and that’s both push & pull as IT companies focus more on recruiting from the whole demographic to source the best candidate in a growing sector offering creative, flexible and well-paid jobs. Add to that the increasing role Technology has at the core of a company rather than traditionally as a support function. E2W is a great example of a successful company leveraging strong ideals about the role of women in the workplace to offer outsourcing services in FinTech. Be the change you wish to see in the world - Gandhi It is fair to acknowledge that companies rarely outperform society in terms of cultural dynamics. Social change that accepts diversity will occur gradually as the concepts and memes discussed here become deeply embedded in our mindset and we outgrow pre-conceptions ingrained in us through generations that held women back. It is not the same as Apple producing a funky new media device that we all just have to buy. But maybe it could be simpler and happen far quicker? Companies strive to outperform! Check in with your own value set when promoting, hiring, firing and paying. Are you treating both genders equally? This sort of change happens from within. Be the change you want to see. Whichever gender you are and whether or not you have children, ask yourself: if you had a daughter would you want her to experience sexism, be underpaid relative to male peers and be overlooked for promotion because she’s a GIRL and in the minority? It’s not just about women, it’s about people. Not to sound too idealistic but I believe ultimately we can create a more supportive, balanced workforce for men & women with higher wellbeing, better decision-making and higher productivity. That’s worth aiming for. HS


Women in Fintech

Every organisation is defined by culture

Susan Cooney | Co-Founder, MahiFX Every organisation is defined by culture. Without it, there would be dissonance, lack of direction and low staff morale. At its most fundamental level, culture is the foundations on which a business is built and grown. Recent research conducted by Deloitte has shown that culture, engagement, and employee retention are now the biggest challenges that businesses are facing. Over 50% of business leaders rate this as an ‘urgent’ issue. But how do we define culture, what exactly is so important about it, and how can we apply this to tech start-ups? Culture is most visible at two key interactive points. Firstly, it is internal, between one another within the team. Secondly, it is reflected to the external world – namely your clients and partners. So, it’s important to identify company culture to ensure that the messages we are sending out are the ones that we want to. What sort of environment are we working in; does it make people want to come to work? When you instil a set of values within a company, it helps people to know what they can expect; it makes them feel comfortable. For example, at Mahi we like to exercise a sense of flexibility amongst our team. To us, the idea of restricting staff to spending specific hours in the office harbours negativity, whereas the relatively new concept of remote working conveys a sense of trust and understanding. Therefore, providing our employees with more freedom to move around is a large part of our culture. However, a priority for one company can be the least appealing to another, which might favour other areas such as costs. Taking the time to think about these ideas is imperative to a functional culture.


Women in Fintech One of the most crucial things a start-up founder can do in the early stages of creating a business is to devote time to defining exactly what sort of culture they want to encourage within their organisation. Failing to do so will inevitably lead to shortcomings further down the line, as the operational side of the business begins to suffer. We all have a rough idea of what we feel is important with regards to culture, ethics that we believe are the right ingredients to success. There isn’t one ‘right’ combination, but they must be consistent to allow a sense of common ground throughout the organisation. Previous experiences within different workplaces, whether good or bad, help us to see our core values, so reflecting on these is the perfect starting point. Selecting appropriate principles that correlate and are easily achievable is equally important, along with ensuring that they all have a common aim of achieving success. Culture is completely redundant however, without good, honest communication. Relaying your values to your team and making sure that everyone is actively engaging with these will create a positive, proactive team. By personally involving yourself and demonstrating your work ethic, you’ll confirm that you value these principles. Occasionally, organisations fall into the trap of creating clone cultures, by selecting employees who they believe are identical in all aspects. Diversity helps drive growth and innovation, so removing that from the equation can have negative consequences. Having said that, too much diversity can also have its problems. If people don’t share the same core values as you, there are going to be difficulties when it comes to collaboration and driving the business forward. As is often the case, a good balance between these two points is ideal, particularly in a tech start-up where innovation and a close-knit, ‘familial’ culture are emerging as the new way of operating. Hierarchy, over-complicated processes, and lack of freedom are among many of the features of large corporations that are now becoming archaic, counter-productive functions. Whilst it might not seem like it directly influences business, culture represents the core values of an organisation. The ‘personality’ of a business is exposed to the external world via culture, and sending out the preferred message is therefore integral to achieving success. HS

The ‘personality’ of a business is exposed to the external world via culture, and sending out the preferred message is therefore integral to achieving success.


Women in Fintech

Women in FinTech – Our view

Jo Finnigan | Director, Cognising Ltd I’ve been thinking quite a bit about women in IT recently, mulling over how few of us there are, especially in Financial or Trading technology, and wondering how being a woman has shaped my experience over the last 19 years (yikes!) I also wondered how other women in technology felt and what their experiences had been. When I was asked to write an article, with “Women in FinTech” as one of the possible topics, I felt it was a chance to explore this further. I decided to interview other experienced women in Financial/Trading technology who were in my network. This is where the stark reality hit home; in my network of 500+ current/former colleagues and business contacts, I could only find a handful of senior female FinTech professionals. Over the years, I have got used to being the only woman in the room in many meetings or working in teams comprised largely of men; but this demonstrated the issue clearly. So why is it like this, what has it been like for these few women, and what can we do to improve the situation? I have my own views on this, but was keen to find out about others’ experiences and ideas. What made us choose to go into an IT career? For a lot of us a natural affinity for maths, sciences and problem solving at an early age translated into an interest in IT later. In the case of Sue, one of the very few women I know who is in a technical role at a senior level, there was a desire to programme and build systems “ever since I got my first computer in the early 80's. I couldn't imagine doing anything else.”


Women in Fintech What has it been like to have a successful career in technology as a woman? Universally the women I interviewed have enjoyed many aspects of their careers, as have I. Some of the highlights include enjoying developing people and seeing them advance, working with other talented people, creating genuinely useful systems and applications, continually learning, and problem solving such as turning around failing systems and projects. What have been our biggest challenges to date as a woman, working in IT? A big theme in the answers here is that the challenge of being a woman in technology increases as we become more senior. This includes the growing awareness that at more senior levels the leadership and communication styles tend to be more traditionally masculine in nature. Whether you believe there are fundamental gender differences here or not, the bottom line is that given the small numbers of women in Financial Technology at this level, it inevitably means that to a large extent we end up being women in a man’s world. As a consequence, as my interviewees tell me, there seems to be easier communication and collaboration amongst men at this level. Struggling to be heard in meetings, wanting to hear others’ views but then missing out on having our opinion listened to, and finding some environments quite combative were some examples cited here. There is also the issue of being accepted as a female leader, especially of technical teams. One of my interviewees explained to me how she has struggled hard over the years to learn to ignore the criticism and cynicism she has been on the receiving end of. She feels this was a direct consequence of being a female manager. Thankfully this wasn’t a widespread issue amongst the responses, but there are many such examples out there. Even though I think I have been relatively lucky with my experiences as a manager, I can understand how these issues can happen. I am reminded of a time I took over a team comprised of all men and took them all out for a drink. One of the team members, a good friend of mine, looked around the bar and commented that he imagined nobody here would think that I was the manager of this group. His comment was actually meant in a supportive and interested way, but I think the problem is that if you’ve never seen it, you won’t expect it, and different people handle that in very different ways. Have we had to change ourselves or our behaviour to fit in to the environment/culture? How has this affected us? Overall this didn’t seem to be a major issue among my interviewees. Some women spoke about disliking a “laddish” culture and not feeling comfortable in that sort of environment, but there were also those who felt they have not had to change themselves to fit in at all. Another spoke of being aware of changing her behaviour somewhat, but also wondering whether it should be the culture changing, rather than her. For myself, I’m sure I have modified my behaviour at work to fit in with the culture, but I think that’s inevitable regardless of the gender issue. I’m different in meetings with my team than I am with a client, for example, and that’s just adapting according to what’s appropriate for the situation. However, reflecting on this recently, I don’t think I have changed my behaviour to be less typically feminine or like myself. I also checked this out with colleagues, who agreed with me. I’m glad about that, and believe that bringing more typically feminine behaviours into benefits organisations, especially such currently male dominated ones.


Women in Fintech Do we perceive any challenges in moving to the next stage in our careers due us being women? There were mixed answers here. Some saw no difficulties at all, but others perceived challenges, which seem to boil down to the lack of role models and paths to follow. Not seeing many women in senior technology roles, especially in technical roles, means that it’s hard to aspire to that and potentially for others to accept one’s aspiration to that. Another interviewee wondered about whether a woman’s different communication/ leadership style would hinder her progress without her necessarily recognising this. Why do we think there are so few women in technology roles in IT as a whole? What are the barriers to hiring more women into technology roles? The main reason cited here again was lack of role models, especially for technical roles, which I definitely agree with. I read the phrase “What you cannot see, you cannot be” in a related article recently, and it stuck with me as a very good description of this problem. A number of my interviewees mentioned the challenge of recruitment. As women, we would all like to recruit more women to redress the gender balance, but there are so few to recruit! I’ve hired quite a lot of people over the past few years and despite wanting to, as well as getting the best person for the job, I haven’t hired many women at all. I did a rough calculation and it looks like around 16% of those I’ve hired in the last 10 years are women. This is very close to the national average of women in tech jobs, which is apparently 17% according to my research. I haven’t gone out of my way to hire women, just hoped each time that I would find a woman who was a great fit for each job. But with the large majority of CVs landing in my inbox being from men, statistics win out in the end.

Whether you believe there are fundamental gender differences here or not, the bottom line is that given the small numbers of women in Financial Technology at this level, it inevitably means that to a large extent we end up being women in a man’s world.

Do we think that things have improved for women in technology over the last 10 years? The trend of the answers here is that we are seeing less overt sexism and discrimination, and more acceptance of women in technology roles, however, it feels to some of us that there are even fewer of us around. And unfortunately, my research on this point seems to back this up – the study parameters and results vary, but at absolute best it looks like the numbers of women in IT have remained static for the last 10 years. What do we think women can bring to technology teams? The thinking here is that women can bring the same to technology teams as they can to any type of organisation. Bringing different strengths and styles can only benefit a team overall. Some of the more typically female strengths such as listening well, building consensus, conscientiousness, and being detail-oriented were specifically called out


Women in Fintech here as being valuable in all teams. What can we do to improve the prospects for women in IT and increase the numbers of women in technology roles? Again, the idea of positive role models came up here, and an encouragement to focus on representing women positively in all forms of related media. Promoting women speakers at conferences and mentoring of young women were also mentioned. From the research I’ve done whilst writing this article, it seems that the problems stem from quite early on in girls’ education. Very few girls are choosing to study computer science, and this seems to be because of social conditioning, starting from the types of toys they are given to play with. I’ve come across many fantastic organisations focusing on fostering interest in technology in girls and young women, with the aim of encouraging more women to study IT related degrees and enter technology careers, which will hopefully improve things over time. I also wonder if opening up more graduate trainee schemes to those from non-numerate disciplines could also help to redress the balance in the short term here, while we work on improving the situation at an earlier stage. What advice would we give to women starting out in a career in Financial Technology? My colleagues mostly talked about the importance of hard work, focus, commitment, thorough learning and study, preparation, and getting involved in technology projects early. Sue gave very practical advice such as “reading up on theory, working on open source projects, answering questions on forums and programming sites, and presenting on technical topics at conferences, to people in your workplace or where you study.” This all seems like very sound advice to me, but what struck me are the reasons some of the women gave for all this thorough preparation. “This should give you the confidence to hold your own… and to try and make your voice be heard” and “Learn the subject matter thoroughly so you can be confident of your knowledge. There is no better way to earn respect.” I can’t help but feel we’re all having to try a little too hard here. I’d really like to do an experiment and ask a group of men in Financial Technology what advice they would give to men starting out in their career and see what the answers are. In fact, I feel another article coming on… HS


Women in Fintech

Are we fighting the wrong fight?

Adizah Tejani | Head of Ecosystem Development, Level39 When I’m asked about what can be done to increase the visibility of women in this industry, in my industry, I can’t help but feel like we’re fighting the wrong fight. The championing of successful, talented and powerful women shouldn’t be a specific initiative, it should be proactively integrated, in a workplace that naturally identifies and celebrates its diversity and allows women to flourish. We’ve worked hard at Level39 to bring women to the forefront of the technology conversation, and we’re a better place for it. We’re proud to boast that out of 553 members, 110 are women, many of them really pushing the boundaries of FinTech, retail tech and future cities technology in London, if not the world. We support Code First Girls which breaks down the tech barriers - over 170 women have gone through the program in two years. We’re proud, but it isn’t enough. Hard work and graft helped us to reach this goal, and it’s that same work ethic which will propel us to lead the conversation of diversity in technology. It was I who was once confused for a personal assistant by one of our members, a confusion I’ll never forget. It was that mistake, if driven by ignorance or sexism, that I keep in the back of my mind as I continue to negotiate deals with some of the world’s biggest organisations. Now I’m proud to announce I’ve initiated partnerships with the world’s largest banks, Swift, IBM, UBS, Thomson Reuters and The World Economic Forum.


Women in Fintech The list is long and it will continue to grow. A list that exists only because a woman dared to execute and deliver in this male-dominated industry. To circle back to my initial point, spotlighting women for being women does nothing to change the most crucial tenet of Level39. We are proud of our ability to deliver results, to deliver growth. It isn’t about being a woman here, it’s about being in an environment that constantly pushes us to deliver, and to deliver quality. From the birth of Level39, we’ve been selective of our mentors, our investors and our companies. We’ve had over 1000 applications but have turned away many, as they just they didn't fit the Level39 ethos.

Hard work and graft helped us to reach this goal, and it’s that same work ethic which will propel us to lead the conversation of diversity in technology.

Do I need to be around successful women in order to continue achieving? While some may say yes, I wouldn’t agree. Some of the greatest advocates in my professional career have been men, and our head, Eric Van der Kleij, is a perfect example of this. His attention to detail, drive and quality is a consistent reminder and inspiration to me - he looks beyond gender, class and creed. It is your ability to deliver which means the most to him, and to me. It is this open mindset which we should advocate across the industry, not just the championing of women. The ability to put aside superficial differences, and to expect one thing only. Success. There isn’t a lot I can say that we’re lucky for here at Level39 everything we’ve achieved has been a labour of love over the past two years. Our growth, our reputation, our members and our ecosystem. If there’s anything I can be thankful for, it’s the great women and men I’m surrounded by every day. HS


Women in Fintech

The FinTech revolution heads for the clouds

Alexandra Foster | Global Head of Strategy & Business Development, Financial Technology Services, BT Over the last decade the financial markets industry has experienced significant regulatory upheaval. We have witnessed a new approach to supervising financial institutions, with regulators moving from a “light touch” approach to an “interventionist” one. This new regulatory landscape has levelled the playing field and acted as an incubator for innovation. And more recently we’ve seen a proliferation of FinTech start-ups. The UK has housed a latent FinTech scene for a long time, dominated by peer-to-peer lending companies. But recently this has rapidly expanded to other areas including payments and investing. It’s clear that the architecture of the financial markets is being rapidly re-engineered. And innovative technology is playing an increasingly pivotal role in this process. In fact, according to research by PwC in 2014, 86% of bank CEOs felt that technological advances are poised to have the greatest impact on banking. But FinTech start-ups face many barriers to entry when trying to introduce new solutions to large financial institutions. Their small size creates challenges around market adoption, delivery and meeting the stringent contractual or compliance expectations of large financial institutions. It is clear that smart start-ups are a growing source of innovation for the global financial


Women in Fintech markets industry. But how do they get the scale and flexibility to deliver services into major financial institutions? One way is to join an established, specialist, secure financial cloud community. These communities bring together brokers, institutions, exchanges and clearing and settlement houses from around the world. Through a single, resilient and secure network connection, members can reliably access applications and services from a range of solution providers. Reach for cloud FinTech start-ups that join one of these communities can enjoy the established benefits of cloud technology, such as scalability and speed to market for their solutions. With a ready-to-exploit market reach FinTech companies of all sizes can grow quickly. To do this, FinTech companies should host their applications and services in data centres, or on the growing range of cloud computing services connected to an established financial cloud community. In addition to that, FinTech companies should keep in mind the commercial, compliance and service level agreements expected by major financial institutions. Smart startups should look for simple and proven models from cloud community providers. These could include both managed hosting and connectivity services delivered separately or as a seamless bundle, with in-built security and resilience, to deliver the 100 per cent availability expected by their clients. The blend of cloud and FinTech innovation is both exciting and enticing. The right combination could provide new routes for the global financial institutions to address increasing regulatory demands, drive efficiencies and identify new opportunities for growth. At the same time it would provide the increased visibility and direct market access for the FinTech companies, eliminating these two traditionally major hurdles in their way to success. HS


FROM FINTECH TO FINTECH REC W E TA L K T O I A N B A I L E Y , A N T O N I O C I A R L E G L I O A N D A N D Y WAT S O N A N D D I S C U S S T H E I R SUCCESSFUL TRANSITION FROM THE WORLD OF FINTECH TO RECRUITMENT


I N T R O D U C T I O N It is now five years since Harrington Starr launched in June 2010 and the focus is very much on continued growth. As a business centred around finding great people for great businesses, we recognise the importance of having the best possible talent in our team. Here we talk to three of our exceptional consultants who have sat on both sides of the FinTech fence. Antonio, Andy and Ian all forged successful careers in financial technology before joining the recruitment profession, here we find out a little bit more about their journey and life inside Harrington Starr.

ANTONIO CIARLEGLIO Antonio spent 5 years in IT software sales before 9 years in US FinTech software companies selling market data, trading and FIX connectivity solutions to the buy and sell side. He has been in FinTech recruitment for 9 years and is the former MD of Stanlake Search.

A N D Y WAT S O N

IAN BAILEY

Andy worked in FinTech sales for 15 years including being the top salesman for BT Radianz and the Sales Manager for Transaction Network Services selling low latency and electronic trading solutions. Formerly a director at Synergy Selection he has been recruiting in FinTech for 5 years.

Ian has been in sales for over ten years and moved into FinTech in 2013 selling business flow and performance analysis solutions for Velocimetrics. He moved into recruitment with Harrington Starr in Feb 2015 and has already had a record breaking start to his time in the company.


Harrington Starr (HS): Tell us a little bit about your background before your career in recruitment. Antonio Ciarleglio (AC): Before I became a recruitment consultant I spent over five years in IT software sales in UK and Italy before coming to London. Here I enjoyed almost nine years with two US FinTech Software vendors selling Market Data, Trading, Risk Management and FIX Connectivity Technology to both the Buy Side and Sell Side across the Front, Middle and Back Office operations. I have front line experience selling FinTech solutions into Tier 1 and 2 banks, Hedge Funds, Asset and Fund Managers, Dealers, Market Makers and Institutional and Retail Brokers. Andrew Watson (AW): Before becoming a recruiter, I spent 15 years in sales and sales management in Financial Technology - starting at Reuters in the mid 1990s. Subsequently I joined a very successful IT start-up that went through an IPO in 2001. I was a top sales person at BT Radianz in the mid 2000s and went on to become the European Sales Manager for Transaction Network Services, selling network connectivity and managed IT solutions for low latency electronic trading. On that journey I have been both a candidate and a hiring manager before becoming a FinTech recruiter in 2010. So I have seen the recruitment industry from all sides. Ian Bailey (IB): It’s been a slightly odd journey to be honest, but one that now makes complete sense to me. I started working life as a Mechanical Engineer, completing a traditional apprenticeship at a small, family-run business near to where I lived in High Wycombe. I loved the work but it soon became clear that my favourite part of the job was when it came to dealing with the customers - friends suggested that I give sales a try and I never looked back! My first sales job was an internal role, selling support renewals for network test equipment - I did well at this so was sent out into the field to work on new business. My first six-figure deal is still one of my greatest career memories! When I moved to London, I wanted to immerse myself in the business world and got a job at the Institute of Directors, which meant dealing with some of the most entrepreneurial and experienced business leaders in the country. This lead to me moving to a business networking start-up which is one of the most challenging yet rewarding things I’ve done. It also gave me exposure to an industry that I’ve since fallen completely in love with, Financial Technology. With the networking business up and running, I was offered a role with a vendor selling business flow and performance analysis tools into Financial Services and jumped at the chance.


Harrington Starr: What made you decide to join the recruitment profession? IB: It seemed the perfect mix of all the bits of the previous roles I had enjoyed the most. I believe financial technology is one of the most innovative, fast moving and exciting industries in the world, and therefore attracts some of the best talent from all over the world. If you love dealing with people, having the opportunity to work with that talent and find them opportunities to help them grow and develop is a great feeling. AW: Although I was very successful as a FinTech sales person, I found a hidden talent when I started hiring people. While I was hiring staff I found that I really enjoyed talking with people about their careers and talents. Furthermore the recruiters I encountered seemed very diverse in terms of quality. A few were excellent whilst most were average to poor. The good recruiters stood out as matching

IT’S BEEN A SLIGHTLY ODD JOURNEY TO BE HONEST, BUT ONE THAT NOW MAKES COMPLETE SENSE TO ME. Ian Bailey

capability with integrity. They were passionate about finding the best talent for their clients and that was something I found very exciting. AC: I joined the recruitment profession completely by accident and not by design. In January 2006 I was looking for a new role and returned to the same recruitment consultant who placed me in

my last role – Guido Egidi at Stanlake Search. Guido was recovering from a recent illness and invited me to join his firm and help him during his recovery period, while I searched for a new role. I never looked back at my decision to stay and continue my career in recruitment. It was a natural move for me, I have always loved working with people and have a real passion for making a difference in people’s lives. Recruitment offers great challenges; you need to develop meaningful and trusting relationships at many levels, consistently deliver world class service to both clients and candidates, and become a trusted and respected industry specialist and adviser. Recruitment is one of the best professions to choose! Harrington Starr: Why did you choose Harrington Starr? AC: I had been following Harrington Starr’s exceptional growth for almost four years and had competed head to head on several recruitment assignments, losing several times! For me joining Harrington Starr was a natural move, the company is the new face


of FinTech recruitment, a disrupter to the norm, passionate in setting new standards in world class performance and working hard to provide recruitment services which combine honesty, transparency and trust as fundamental pillars of the business. These are all key values which I share. Harrington Starr is very ambitious in its goal to be the no 1 FinTech Company globally, ensuring that all employees will share the success in this growth, that clients will benefit by being provided with the very best talent and candidates by being offered the very best career opportunities. IB: I first came across Harrington Starr from their business networking breakfasts – I thought that any organisation who manages to get such a senior group of finance leaders in a room first thing in the morning must have something about them. I met some of the team, did some research and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive – they’re the best. Simple as that. AW: Harrington Starr is one the best FinTech recruiters in Europe. Harrington Starr was a company I watched enter the European FinTech recruitment market in 2010 and grow exponentially. Feedback from people who had worked with Harrington Starr was very positive. Whilst I competed against them for a while, it was a friendly rivalry! Harrington Starr has three advantages over other recruiters: Strong strategic vision matched with a disciplined approach to recruitment – they teach you how to be the best recruiter in the business and you feel empowered and engaged. We have a huge client list (over 550 banks, hedge funds, exchanges and vendors) - this means the opportunities are enormous. Finally they keep their feet on the ground and know how to have fun whilst delivering excellence. Harrington Starr: What experiences from your time working in Fintech have helped you succeed in recruitment? AW: 15 years in FinTech and running my own European sales team means I can combine deep market knowledge with a broad network of contacts. However I think the key ingredient is having empathy with candidates and hiring managers - I have been in their shoes! IB: An understanding of the industry certainly helps. When I first got into FinTech, there was a whole new world of acronyms and terminology that I had to learn, not just on the


technology side of things but the financial side, too. I certainly feel like that’s given me a head start in this business. My personal network has been very useful too. AC: As I mentioned earlier, having front line experience selling FinTech solutions in the financial markets to both the Buy and Sell Side Institutions, across Front, Middle and Back Office operations, gave me in-depth Financial Industry knowledge, which allows me to really understand both the clients and candidates requirements and relate to their individual business needs. Having developed a network of industry peers and contacts, was fundamental in helping me hit the ground running and quickly developing trust and respect as a recruitment consultant. Understanding the challenges within FinTech especially from increasing changes in Regulatory and Compliance, helps me to quickly understand business and mission critical issues facing

THE GOOD RECRUITERS STOOD OUT AS MATCHING CAPABILITY WITH INTEGRITY. THEY WERE PASSIONATE ABOUT FINDING THE BEST TALENT FOR THEIR CLIENTS AND THAT WAS SOMETHING I FOUND VERY EXCITING.

both clients and candidates. Aside from specific industry

Andy Watson

experience it is also important to love working with people, be tenacious, resilient, a good listener and empathic. Harrington Starr: What do you see as the most transferrable skills that would help someone coming into the industry? IB: You’ve got to love talking to people and more importantly, listening. That’s true of any sales-based business. A good level of market knowledge has also helped me to gain credibility, and that’s something that you will only get from having worked in the industry previously. AC: Previous FinTech knowledge combined with an active and trusted network of contacts offers a huge advantage to quickly achieve success and build trust and rapport with clients and candidates. Experience in sales, account management and presales, or a technical back ground as a developer, project manager or business analyst are also advantageous. AW: If you have worked in the FinTech industry, you have a huge advantage in


recruitment. Your market knowledge will give you the edge over most other recruiters who will never have the same insight or credibility. Harrington Starr: What markets do you cover now? AW: My primary focus is on recruiting senior management, sales and pre-sales. Two areas where we see a lot of growth is managing big data and risk management for regulation/ compliance. I also have expertise in hosting and low latency connectivity after my time at BT Radianz and TNS. IB: I look after Java, C++ and Quantitative Financial IT which I find incredibly interesting. It’s a very large market with a huge pool of talent, and organisations are always looking for the best out there. The opportunities are immense. AC: I cover all positions across Sales, Pre-sales, Relationship/Account Manager and Marketing roles, at all levels from graduate, junior, senior executive and sales manager, to C’ Level. The markets I work in include all Buy and Sell Side FinTech Vendors, across Front, Middle and back Office operations, for Trading solutions and data, Risk and Compliance Management, Analytics and Performance, Clearing, Payments, Reference data and Corporate Actions. Harrington Starr: What advice would you give to someone currently in Fintech thinking about a move into recruitment? AC: Selling FinTech software is great fun, rewarding and challenging, technology changes and improves every day. In recruitment you can build your own business, meet different people every day, face new challenges daily, no two people are the same and every day is varied. Recruitment is exciting, fun and rewarding, you will need high energy, mental agility, resilience, tenacity, empathy, a sense of humour, be a team player and a genuine drive to succeed and win big! AW: If you work hard, recruiting is a most satisfying career - especially for those looking to switch careers from FinTech sales and move into recruitment. But you will need energy, willingness to learn new working practices, integrity and a passion to help other people build their careers. IB: Give me a call. On a daily basis you get to talk to some of the brightest and best talent in the world, and learn about some of the most innovative and forward thinking business


in the world. What’s not to love?! Harrington Starr: What have been the main challenges that you have faced? IB: Personally, it’s finding enough hours in the day to get everything done that I want to do. As mentioned before I work in a huge segment of the market so I always feel I could be doing more. Professionally, it would seem that there are some fairly unscrupulous recruiters out there, so occasionally it can be a challenge to help people understand that Harrington Starr do it very differently. It’s always a pleasure when they understand what we do. AW: Making the switch from FinTech sales management into recruiting is a paradigm shift. You stop selling products and start helping individuals and companies maximise their human capital and talent. To be

RECRUITMENT IS EXCITING, FUN AND REWARDING, YOU WILL NEED HIGH ENERGY, MENTAL AGILITY, RESILIENCE, TENACITY, EMPATHY, A SENSE OF HUMOUR, BE A TEAM PLAYER AND A GENUINE DRIVE TO SUCCEED AND WIN BIG! Antonio Ciarleglio

successful you need good mentors who will advise and support you as you make the career switch. I was lucky in having such good mentors including Toby Babb, Managing Director of Harrington Starr. AC: Moving from selling software to selling people is a big shift in both a mental and physiological aspect. Understanding how software works and what it delivers to clients is relatively straight forward to learn and understand. Understanding how people work, think, feel, desire and need, is not

as straight forward. I needed to exercise patience and understanding as the decision making process can take time and will affect many people not directly involved, therefore many factors have to be taken into consideration with both clients and candidates. Learning about new FinTech software and start-ups in a short time period is a constant challenge. Recruiting is a little like juggling, you need to keep many plates spinning and balls juggling at the same time without dropping any balls or breaking any plates! Harrington Starr: What do you enjoy most about your role now? AW: Harrington Starr is great place to work. The company has a clear vision of where it wants to be in 10 years’ time and is building a team of people who combine energy, excellence, execution and espirit de corps.


IB: The hardware I’ve sold in the past has never gone out of their way to thank me for helping to change their lives. The people I deal with are hugely talented, so when you’re able to help them to make life changing decisions it’s incredibly rewarding. AC: Working with a hugely talented team of likeminded people who are really passionate and dedicated to their work. I also have great mentors in all four founding members who all work in the front line of recruitment and running the business. Toby Babb the Managing Director and founding partner shares a passion for the business and a clear decisive vision for our future growth which is both unique and rare to find in the recruitment industry. Harrington Starr: What do you think lies ahead for recruitment in Fintech? IB: With the new and innovative firms that are coming through to join the big and established players, combined with the incredible pool of talent this industry has to offer, FinTech recruitment has to be one of the most exciting places to be in the world. AW: This is one of the best times to be in FinTech recruitment. The FinTech is a $2bn industry; investment in FinTech is growing at 20%. Jobs in FinTech are growing at 17%. The search is on for FinTech recruiters who have intelligence, curiosity and can deliver solutions to their clients. For those people the rewards are very lucrative. AC: The Recruitment Industry is one of the UK’s largest services sector, FinTech Recruitment is at an explosive stage with established and start-up companies growing at the fastest rate on record. London is well on its way to becoming the FinTech and Startup Capital of the world, there has never been better time to join the industry and develop a successful and rewarding career. Our challenge is to uncover and attract the very best talented people to join us. Harrington Starr: What are your personal plans and ambitions for the future? AC: To continue to grow and learn, become a world class performing recruitment consultant. To build the no 1 Sales Recruitment Practice globally. Use all my skills, knowledge and experience to help Harrington Starr grow and become the no 1 FinTech recruitment company globally. Have fun, enjoy every day and of course enjoy the rewards! AW: Help build the Harrington Starr brand further and be the best recruiter of FinTech sales people in London. Above all, to keep learning, make money and have fun.


IB: It’s a fairly modest ambition, I want to be the best recruiter in the best firm in the best industry in the word. Industry and firm boxes have both been ticked, but I work alongside some serious talent so there’s plenty of work to be done! Harrington Starr: Gentlemen, thank you very much for your time and good luck with your continued success within the business. HS

Harrington Starr have ambitious growth plans and will be looking to double headcount in the next 12 months. To find out more about how we can build your career and make your success our business, contact Toby Babb on 0203 587 7007. Alternatively if you are a FinTech company looking to grow your team or a FinTech professional looking for the next stage of your career you won’t go wrong getting in touch with Antonio, Andy and Ian!

HARRINGTON STARR YOUR SUCCESS. OUR BUSINESS.


guest Heature The Rise of DigiHuman DAVE COPLIN – CHIEF ENVISIONING OFFICER, MICROSOFT UK


Dave Coplin, Chief Envisioning Officer, Microsoft UK Since joining Microsoft in 2005, Dave Coplin has worked across a wide range of industries and customers, providing strategic advice and guidance around the impact of technology on a modern society both at work and in play. As an established thought leader in the UK and having spent a considerable amount of time in both the public and private sectors providing leadership and guidance around key technology issues like Cloud Computing, Privacy, Big and Open Data, Social Media, Open Government, Advertising and the “consumerisation” of IT. Dave is currently working as the Chief Envisioning Officer for Microsoft UK, helping organisations and individuals envision the full potential that technology offers a modern, digital society.

A

few months ago, researchers at Harvard University, announced the results of an incredible project that essentially enables computers to understand human thought, albeit at a very rudimentary level (the computer was able to understand a single word when the human thought of it). Minutes after the announcement social channels were filled with the dystopian visions of digital mind-control, condemning us to a protracted power battle between humans and machines and advocating resistance against our new digital overlords. Of course, I don’t think the future will play out in anything like the sorts of scenarios that we see in the movies but I am continually bemused as to why we, as a society, so often see this as a conflict. Why is it always about humans _vs_ machines when surely the whole point of what we have been doing


for the last few decades (although I would argue we’ve been doing it for much longer) is about the incredible opportunity that lies in front of us when instead we think about the potential of humans _plus_ machines? A place where the technology does not replace us, but instead lifts us, it augments our capabilities to help us achieve more. This conversation is becoming more and more relevant in the Fin Tech industry, a world that is increasingly based on the cold, unemotional light of insights from data being harnessed by the growing power of algorithms. This is a world where, when fed with enough data, the algorithms will know what markets and companies will thrive and which will fail. Humans will therefore no longer be required and we can sit back on our ample backsides and bask in the glory of all that we have created. It’s usually at this point, someone hits the big red button labelled “panic” and we all start worrying about our jobs because after all, the computers can do all this stuff better than us can’t they? Well the truth is yes, and no. Computers and algorithms are powerful and will do more and more of the heavy lifting in all aspects of our lives. But for the foreseeable future there’s still a lot that they will absolutely have to rely on humans to provide and this is what we really need to start to grasp. At a high level at least, we can help to ease some of the anxiety for our future employment prospects by taking a little time to understand the limitations of algorithms: 1. Algorithms can only make predictions (e.g. “this must be spam”, “this ad should be placed here”) based on experiences drawn from a huge trove of “training” data. 2. They can only learn from that data by processing it within a model that has been given to them; they can’t learn from data alone. 3. As the volume of data expands, the machines

learn from the results of previous predictions and fine-tune the model. This iterative self-improvement is one of the most powerful features of machine learning and but it basically means they can improve on the results of the model, but they can’t improve the model itself. 4. The machines draw conclusions and develop solutions based on probability; they are not human, as such they have no emotion or biases to augment their perspective. I know that’s a lot to take in, but if you think of it like this – the algorithms are only as good as the data they get fed (garbage in…) and they are constrained by the rules that they’ve been provided with, they cannot yet improve the models, or connect multiple models together independently. Doesn’t this sound a lot like the age old conversation about “tools” and how they’re only as good as the people that use them? It should, because it’s no different. So, before the finance industry rises up and forms their own digital Luddite rebellion (how ironic would that be?) we’ve just got to remember that by getting the machines to do more work, more of the heavy lifting, we should be pushing ourselves to make better use of that platform to extend ourselves further. We need to remember that computers, algorithms and the data that feeds them are here to help. The success of our industry’s future will depend entirely on our ability to grasp the potential they offer us. As a result, our aspiration should be to do things differently, not the same things slightly better. If we get this right, we humans won’t have to be in awe of the machines; instead, we will stand high and proud on the shoulders of these mechanical giants and accomplish truly amazing things. The time for us to make this happen is now. The rise of the humans has already started – and the world will never be the same again. HS



THE TENTH FINANCIAL SERVICES AND COMMODITIES TECHNOLOGY NETWORKING BREAKFAST

TUESDAY JUNE 23RD 07:45 – 11:00

AM

AR

GTON ST R IN AR

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IRONMONGERS’ HALL SHAFTSBURY PLACE BARBICAN, LONDON EC2Y 8A A

An exclusive, complimentary event from Harrington Starr with a keynote from

Join over 150 of the leading names in financial services and commodities technology to meet, connect and create lasting business relationships.

DAVE COPLIN AUTHOR AND CHIEF ENVISIONING OFFICER FOR MICROSOFT, UK

AGENDA FOR THE MORNINg 07:45 – 08:30 Join us for tea, coffee and pastries 08:30 – 10:00 Keynote and Q&A with Dave Coplin 10:00 – 11:00 Networking tea and coffee MR COPLIN APPEARS BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT WITH DBA SPEAKERS, 01932 228544 www.dbaspeakers.com GLOBAL LEADERS IN FINANCIAL SERVICES

& COMMODITIES TECHNOLOGY RECRUITMENT

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

The 10th Financial Services and Commodities Technology Breakfast

+

DAVE COPLIN +

W H I T E P A P E R


he 10th FST Breakfast meeting saw 150 delegates join us and our event partners from Digiterre and DBA Speakers for a morning of networking and insight from the exceptional Dave Coplin, author, thought leader, speaker and Chief Envisioning Officer from Microsoft UK. These events have had over 1500 senior figures from the FS Technology space over the last three years and we have taken lessons in leadership from some incredible speakers from the world of sport, business and the military. Alongside the opportunity to hear from world class speakers, we have been delighted to hear of connections being made between the FinTech disruptors, consultancies, vendors and end users (ranging from banks and hedge funds to brokerages and exchanges).

Technology has seemed to disconnect us and we have developed three main coping mechanisms: 1. Skimming: A habit that means we skim over the surface of the information without diving deep into the text. 2. Snacking: Filling in all of our spare time to get information and catch up on information. Flicking through emails when you are watching TV, brushing the kids’ teeth, waiting for your fish and chips. 3. Multi-tasking: It is a lie that to be successful you must multi-task. It is not a human trait but a computer science trait. Our brains are not wired to do more than one thing and it makes us a third less effective when we are doing that in each task. The average time delay is 23 minutes for every distraction meaning we are disconnecting from ourselves and creating massive time and efficiency delays.

We have traditionally taken the key lessons from these sessions and delivered them as a feature / aide memoire of the key lessons from the event. Here are some of the key takeaways that we took from the session with Dave. For those of you who have not yet been fortunate enough to discover Dave Coplin, Microsoft’s Chief Envisioning Officer is far more than a comedy job title. A passionate technologist, his job is to project out into the future and predict the future of humanity. In his work, including his two brilliant books Business Reimagined and The Rise of The Humans, he has found that technology has actually started to constrain how we work and indeed “the way we work today doesn’t work at all.” He has become one of the UK’s most sought after speakers and his youtube RSA animation is a must watch. His work makes you stop and think and we recognise that despite huge technological advances, we remain trapped in a falling state of productivity. At the centre of his argument is the issue of productivity and he showed how we are at our lowest growth in sixty years in the UK. In Coplin’s words “we haven’t risen to the opportunity of technology and 65 years later, nothing has changed. This comes down to employee engagement which is having a hugely limiting impact on companies. Citing a recent report he claimed that only 17% of employees are engaged meaning that a staggering 83% of UK workers are actively disengaged from their jobs. The digital deluge and technology have simply got in the way and humans, rather than technology, are the limiting factor.


The digital deluge is killing our ability to stop, think, re-charge and innovate. Life has become busy as we skim, snack and multi-task ourselves to inefficiency. The deluge is a gift we are failing to capitalise on. Dave Coplin believes that we need to redefine what work is and see it as an activity rather than a destination. We should not be tied by time or destinations and flexible working is at the core of this. To clarify, flexible working is not working from home but instead choosing the most appropriate location from which to work. Open plan offices and the current way that we work kills productivity as we are faced with the great debate of outcome vs pressure. Email is at the kernel of this and Dave called for us to “unbox our inbox.” As Bill French said “email is where knowledge goes to die.” Opening knowledge up through social media and enterprise social tools gives us rich data, the fuel of everything that we do. We get different answers and, through access to more data, the questions fundamentally change. As a man focused on the future, Coplin sees data as a key growth area for predicting the future and what will happen as opposed to what can happen. Microsoft’s data tools predicted 15 of the last 16 world cup games, they are starting to get stuff right. Machine learning and statistical based pattern recognition will transform TO CLARIFY, FLEXIBLE how we do things.

WORKING IS NOT WORKING FROM HOME BUT INSTEAD CHOOSING THE MOST APPROPRIATE LOCATION FROM WHICH TO WORK.

Transformational technology in the space has already created instantaneous language translation through Skype meaning our children will be able to explore the world in a way we never thought possible. With these advances we have to reimagine business and think differently as “we will never be transformational over email.” As with many of our previous speakers from the world of sport and military, Coplin believes in organisational purpose and empowerment of staff. We should “unleash our staff and step out of the way of the workforce.” Trust is at the centre of that which brings us back to flexible working. The real issues here lie around the employees who become paranoid as the work from home that people think they are working on the patio so they send more emails and erode the benefits of flexible work in the first place. In Dave’s mind this is not an employee perk or an HR thing but an ability to choose the most appropriate time to be working. Business must create the space for creativity. You will not, as Dave stated, be creative in an open plan office and need quiet spaces to innovate. Rather than fill the day with skimming and snacking we must free our minds up to breathe. In the future humans must use technology to extend capability rather than inhibit it.


Flexible working, improving work life balance and working for companies that embrace technology with interesting and challenging work featured prominently in a recent report on the best places to work in financial technology vendors that we recently put together. One of the key themes of that report that companies within FinTech are getting better at offering more flexible ways of working to their staff. The issues centre, however, on overcoming the digital deluge. How can we embrace technology to get more done rather than to increase the barriers to productivity? We need to switch off to dream, create and innovate. Flexible working should be about maximising productivity rather than simply doing more to justify working from home. When companies truly get this right, the transformational opportunities are limitless. Thanks to Dave Coplin for being such a stand out speaker, to Diana Boulter and the team at DBA Speakers for partnering with us in our 2015 event programme and to Ian Murrin and his exceptional crew at Digiterre for their continued partnership in this year. To find out more about Dave and many other exceptional speakers please contact Diana at [email protected].

Further reading by Dave Coplin:

You can also find out more about Digiterre at www.digiterre.com. Further details on our next event will be released soon. Keep an eye on our events page at www.harringtonstarr.com. Digiterre Agility enables organizational change by designing and delivering software that our clients want, need and use. Every project we undertake is, by its nature, unique. As a result, we are well equipped to deal with the new, the unexpected and the unknown. That said, we have acquired particular know-how over the last 15 years helping organizations that need to trade or manage assets in highly regulated industries. We work with global investment banks, hedge funds, asset managers and insurers to deliver trading, portfolio management, front office, compliance, quant modelling and desktop analytics solutions as well as systems integration, web architecture and transactional websites. Often we are fixing urgent problems, unlocking opportunities and delivering significant competitive advantage where other approaches have fallen short or failed. Clients love the speed with which our specialists deliver scalable, working software that people actually want to use, while generating the minimum of waste or fuss. We are very proud that the vast majority of our new business comes to us from referrals.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rise-Humansoutsmart-digital-deluge-ebook/dp/B00K7ZD80C/ ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1436890555&sr=81&keywords=dave+coplin

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Business-Reimaginedwork-working-about-ebook/dp/B00D1W04X2/ ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1436890555&sr=82&keywords=dave+coplin


agility [uh-jil-i-tee] noun 1 the power of moving quickly and easily; nimbleness 2 the ability to think and draw conclusions quickly; intellectual acuity 3 custom software that users like to use

digiterre.com/agility GLOBAL LEADERS IN FINANCIAL SERVICES AND COMMODITIES TECHNOLOGY RECRUITMENT FINANCIAL SERVICES | ENERGY & COMMODITIES | PROFESSIONAL SERVICES 6 1

SARKET NEWS & COMMENTARY Bite size news from the financial services and commodities technology markets

strategy in Asia and our vision to move into adjacent markets beyond traditional energy commodities,’ said Frank Brienzi, Allegro’s new Chief Executive Officer. “JustCommodity has a proven track record of success in agriculture commodities, and a seasoned leadership team that understands the nuances of successfully navigating Asian markets. The combined offering creates the most robust commodity management solution available today with the widest global reach”.

SOFTWARE VENDORS MARKIT CONTINUES ITS M&A ACTIVITY with the acquisition of Information Mosaic – the provider of corporate actions and post-trade processes solutions. This is a significant addition to an already impressive acquisition portfolio and seeks to strengthen Markit’s position as a leading services provider. SS&C CONFIRMED the acquisition of Advent Software to take their existing customer base to 10,000 customers worldwide and combined revenues of $1.2 billion. A leading global provider of financial services software, SS&C has a successful track record in integrating systems, services and people into their organisation and by integrating Advent into their portfolio of systems, SS&C continue to be able to provide nimble services and complete transparency throughout the front, middle and back office operations.

THIS ACQUISITION takes Allegro to a global powerhouse level in E/CTRM technology solutions across their different markets, with a truly international footprint. With their appointment of a new CEO last month, and now the JustCommodity acquisition it’s going to be very interesting to see the future development of Allegro globally. IS IT TIME FOR THE BIG BOYS to look up to the smaller players? Recently we were speaking with an innovative collateral management provider and they were saying how the market was changing, they are providing a service for almost an eighth of the cost with twice as much quality as they keep it simple and cheap with great service. Is there a risk of forgetting what’s really important to your customers if your growth is too rapid?

ALLEGRO DEVELOPMENT, a leading E/CTRM supplier has just acquired JustCommodity who are a Singapore-based CTRM solution provider. JustCommodity is a specialist supplier around agriculture commodities with their work-force based largely in Asia supplying into some of the world’s largest trading companies.

WITH THE FINTECH boom rapidly gathering speed in London, numerous FinTech software start-ups have sprung up offering either products or services which harness the latest technologies and are certain to

‘I’M THRILLED to announce the acquisition of JustCommodity, it perfectly aligns to our growth


have positive externalities for the entire industry. However, the biggest barrier young start-ups are facing are the very long and drawn out sales cycles with the banks. While a certain piece of software might certainly add value, it takes between one - two years for the approval, demo stage and final full scale integration to take place. What this means for these smaller companies is that, while they have a great product, they often run out of money before they can complete the sales cycle.

AN ACCENTURE REPORT calculates FinTech spending globally at $12.2bn in 2015 with the US leading as the dominant country. This is a significant year on year growth from 2012 and 2013. Payments continues to be the big area for investment with insurance and cloud tipped as areas to watch going forward into 2016.

A SOLUTION that some Fin Tech start-ups have adopted is diversifying their technologies into sectors such as retail where technologies are transferable and hence the product doesn’t need to be radically changed but can also act as a cash cow to support the cash poor start-up while it reaches for the riches with the bigger banks.

THIS WEEK we saw the anniversary of the FACTA. This has been a 12 month period of complete redesign of reporting and data management for those companies subject to the regulation. 2015 has been a complicated time for effected businesses, a lot of companies have chosen to build in house applications to help them manage the process.

ALGOMI, the poster company for FinTech overnight success, won another award recently when they were named FinTech Innovation of the Year at Euromoney’s Global Awards. The firm has grown massively in the last three years and is now 130 people worldwide with plans to continue expanding in the next six months. It’s fantastic to see such success for a firm who were eight people working in a small room not too long ago.

HOWEVER, as much as the effected firms have worked hard to get up and running, there is still more work to be done. The impending Common Reporting Standard (CRS) due to come in in 2016, will see more work around reporting requirements of FATCA. The need to scale and strategically design in accordance with the CRS, is essential in order to hit the ground running come the next requirement.

FINTECH / DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY

TILT, the San-Francisco based collaborative funding platform has now launched in the UK and opened an office on London’s Moorgate. The group funding platform allows users to create or contribute to campaigns of their choosing and users range from friends chipping in for a birthday present, communities attempting to rejuvenate their local area to fundraisers for large, non-profit organisations.

Algomi has grown massively in the last three years and is now 130 people worldwide with plans to continue expanding in the next six months. It’s fantastic to see such success for a firm who were eight people working in a small room not too long ago.

THE NEVER ENDING COMPLIANCE RACE GOES ON! The fixed income market continues to gather pace, we have seen Algomi show some fantastic growth over the last few years and Codestreet are looking to increase their European footprint. Codestreet who are leaders in helping the fixed income brokerdealer community respond to the changing fixed income landscape by enabling trading desks to turn over their balance sheet with significantly greater velocity by doing more riskless business. They have over a decade worth of experience building effective technology that can give their clients the edge. With the changing landscape of the fixed income industry across Europe, Codestreet are laying out plans to build on their European client base. Check them out www.codestreet.com DIRECTMONEY, an Australian marketplace lending business is due to list on the ASX for an estimated $53Million. It is the first credit provider of its kind to list locally and only the fourth to list globally. Despite being set up over seven years ago, DirectMoney has only been operational for the past five months with backing from offshore P2P specialists Liberum Capital and Eaglewood Capital Management. FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGY has been predicted to grow to a $21 Billion market in Australia by 2020. PIONEER SOLUTIONS has joined the CTRM Conference as a Bronze Sponsor. The CTRM Conference is being held in London, 22nd October. Get in touch to find out more details.


OVER THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS we have seen a substantial increase in innovative, internet based wealth management companies popping up including the likes of Nutmeg and Clear Macro. What these companies have essentially done is reduce the barriers to entry for investors coming into the market, allowing them to invest smaller amounts of money compared to more traditional wealth managers which have much larger minimum capital investments. Other companies such as Crowdcube and Funding Circle have given retail investors the opportunity to invest in more risky, “out there” ideas and harness the power of the crowd to bring these interesting ideas into prototype stage and beyond.

FinTech incubator by Barclays, Visa Europe have an accelerator programme called Collab and Santander has set-up a fund specifically focussed on FinTech start-ups, as banks quickly try to address the issue. THAT’S NICE BUT WHO’S BACKING YOU? With financial start-ups thriving recently, it poses the question of whether these up-and-coming businesses need support from established banking groups. A REPORT RELEASED by Silicon Valley Bank earlier this year, highlighted that FinTech is worth £20 billion in revenue to the UK economy today and has encouraged banks to enter the start-up world. Santander has set up a fund in order to invest in FinTech, committing up to £10 million of capital over the next two years to promote further growth in the sector.

THERE IS A STRONG ARGUMENT to be made that FinTech Start Ups are now the most crowded space within any part of the Financial Sector. Not a day goes by without another start-up being announced and trying to get some traction in the market, whilst an equal or greater number regularly slip into oblivion. With the majority of them being on the Software Vendor side this makes it even harder for them to attract the funding and brand recognition to succeed. The banks have definitely recognised the importance of the sector with Barclays, Santander and Visa all having incubator programs but how long can it keep growing? Still, for the time being, it shows no sign of slowing down.

AS FANTASTIC FOR THE UK ECONOMY as this is, it promotes an upward spiral for the Vendor. As a huge consideration for the Software end user, is the safety and stability of the Supplier. When 50% of UK start-ups fail within the first five years (according to the Telegraph), investing in the technology of a start-up can be a huge risk compared to using a wellestablished organisation. TWO YEARS AGO Eze Software Group benefited from $62 million investment when acquired by a private equity firm. Since then they have been able to maintain continuous growth at a rate of 20%pa, ensuring their budgets are in place for the next five years at least!

THE LONDON FINTECH SCENE was said to be worth 20 billion pound this year and we can see this in the number of technology innovations that have successfully launched within the last five years. From level 39 to Silicon Roundabout at Old Street right down to the new R&D centres being set up across the UK let alone London is putting the FinTech scene firmly on the map.

WITH FINANCIAL SECURITY behind them, not only does this raise their status among competitors and client space, but it also helps attract a new level of talent to the organisation, with a strong brand to promote to clients and the satisfaction of job security.

HOWEVER, the market is levelling out and we can see the Investment Banking community taking the lead in the innovative game of technology. The sell side space has become highly disruptive and we have seen a number of projects coming through where Investment Banks are looking to improve customer relations from everyday users to high net worth individuals. Making it easy to access and move money for their customers is just as important as Investment Banks looking after their bottom line now and we have seen some highly innovative projects from UX/UI and interaction projects that are looking like the hottest projects to take off in the city right now.

THIS KIND OF SUCCESS STORY is occurring all across the city, helping smaller start-ups compete with the big dogs, seeming that the more investment a startup can gain in the first five years, the more likely they are to succeed. Santander have launched a $100,000,000 FinTech fund for financial services firms struggling to get funding. The bank has announced a venture capital fund which despite being Londonbased will have a global remit. SANTANDER has said that the fund isn’t just for FinTech. It will also be used to invest in technology that “ensures Santander’s customers world-wide benefit from the latest know-how and innovations”.

A REPORT RELEASED BY SILICON VALLEY BANK earlier this year, highlighted that FinTech is worth £20 billion in revenue to the UK economy today and has encouraged banks to enter the start-up world, as stated by the Guardian. The lack of innovation of banks has been cited for their failure according to Kristo Kaarman co-founder of Transferwise. Banks are trying to adapt with examples included a launch of a

CISCO are set to invest $1bn in UK tech growth The $1bn will come through a series of strategic commitments over the next three to five years. The investment will support the next phase of the country’s digitization plans. This will see Cisco continue to expand on some of its projects such


as the British Innovation Gateway, which helps to nurture tech talent. Cisco will also invest $150m for Internet of Everything UK startups and venture capital equity investments which will focus on key priorities for Cisco and the UK.

formidable IT teams that are allowing the business to take an upper hand. The Brokerage scene is slowly putting in the money and challenging the buy side space and exciting Fintech start ups to top tier talent. This sector is one to watch in finance in Q1 and Q2 for 2016.

BROKERAGES, EXCHANGES, TRADING HOUSES, MTFS, A LT E R N AT I V E T R A D I N G V E N U E S

EURONEXT is partnering with the big banks including BNP Paribas, Societe Generale and ABN Amro to launch the latest stage of its programme to garner more tech listings, as exchanges compete to attract the next generation of high growth firms to their markets.

JEFFERIES ARE TO CLOSE DOWN their Bache business with the majority of staff expected to leave on August 31st 2015. The Futures Commission Market was possibly going to be sold on before the strategic decision to close down the operation was taken. As a result, Jefferies are largely exiting the Commodity Futures business.

NETWORK, INFRASTRUCTURE, SERVICE PROVIDERS HACKING IS BECOMING A COMMERCIAL BUSINESS according to a report by Richter. The report stated that 40% of the top 10 data breaches in 2014 were due to lapses in non-technical controls, which primarily includes mistakes and lack of governance.

WITH MIFID II being introduced in the very near future do we have a lack of knowledge out there? We are starting to see much more requirement from our clients for candidate to have knowledge or experience around MiFID yet there is still a lack of talent out there with the relevant experience. What are we going to do if the go live date comes round and we are in the same boat? Are MiFID SMEs going to be the most expensive commodity out there?

ACCORDING TO A REPORT BY DELOITTE, the wealthier the nation the more at risk a country is of cyberattack. The report cites and uses examples of data breaches in Japan and US as evidence. Britain was also identified as being one of the biggest targets because of their connections to the internet and usage of online systems.

RETAIL BROKERAGES such as CMC Markets and IG Index are actively focussing on creating new markets and on boarding new asset classes to stay ahead of the competition. However, parallel to this, there has been an acknowledgement for high performance risk systems as the Swiss crisis / collapse of Alpari demonstrated, expanding too quickly and taking on huge leverage can have fatal effects for CFD/Spread betting providers with sudden surges in volatility. With a turbulent economic outlook ahead with various conflicts across the world, the Greek crisis and a number of other companies hovering at very high debt levels, this could become a top priority for the leading brokerages.

MCAFEE, the cybersecurity provider for Intel estimated the global cost of cybercrime to businesses costs in the region of $400 billion worldwide. The report also stated that as technology changes, that cybersecurity will follow and evolve resulting in an increase of attacks. NEW LEGISLATION for Data Protection. Could this mean Cybersecurity will finally take centre stage? Cybersecurity was a key focus for the regulatory commissions during June when the European Parliament, Council and the Commission, held a meeting with the specific agenda to reach agreements about the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

HIGH FREQUENCY TRADING FIRMS are continuing to be attractive to the world economy, particularly on the exchanges. This can be seen by the exchanges still trying to woo the traders onto their platforms. Muammer Cakir, managing director at Borsa Istanbul, has been quoted as saying “We are welcoming foreign investors, and that includes HFT firms”. Given the large scale benefits to exchanges it’s no surprise to see them continuing to be wooed and it definitely seems that HFT is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

ACCORDING TO THE NATIONAL LAW REVIEW, EU legislators have been discussing how to implement the GDPR by the end of the year, and to allow companies time to adopt and comply, offer a transition period of two years. AT A RECENT PRESS CONFERENCE, Jan-Philipp Albrecht and Claude Moraes - from the European Parliament, highlighted that the GDPR should provide a high standard of protection and must exceed the protection offered in the 1995 EU Data Protection Directive.

BROKERAGES AND EXCHANGES are investing in their IT departments with many of the well-known brands upping their head count and investing in newer technology stacks. This is mainly down to companies gaining a competitive edge in the sector through

THIS WAS UNDERLINED in the recent panel discussion at Cloud World Forum in June “Steps to Getting


Mobile, Network and Application Security Right” by Andrew Joint from Kemp Little LLP.

ways which most consumers are oblivious to. An appropriate update must put control of personal data back in the hands of European consumers,” Goyens commented.

“THE DATA PROTECTION LEGISLATION, as it exists at the moment, dates back to 1995 when only the largest of organisations had the capacity or the desire to collect and store large amounts of data. 20 years on, the technological landscape for the collection, manipulation, replication and transmission of data is completely and utterly different. Actually, it’s remarkable how well that old legislation has done and the fact is that it needs updating,” Joint said.

A KEY CLAUSE of the GDPR which is a key focus of debate, is how users can legitimately sue cloud storage providers because they are responsible for processing the data. According to the Guardian , Amazon and IBM believe that if organisations comply with this clause, Europe’s cloud computing industry would be killed off. LIAM BENHAM, IBM’s vice president of government and regulatory affairs, firmly believes that the old regulation would work better for cloud providers because if rules are broken, the right people would be blamed. "It is important that consumers and businesses understand who ultimately is responsible for processing their data. Now the EU's draft Data Protection Regulation risks blurring these lines of responsibility, setting the stage for lengthy and costly legal disputes, which will be perplexing for consumers and businesses alike," Benham commented.

INFORMATION SECURITY consulting practice director at NTT Com Security Mick Ebsworth commented that although new regulations were emerging, security education must go far and beyond the corporate world, everyone needs to understand and know the risk of cyber threat on a personal level. Ebsworth also added that migration to the cloud can be made secure if implemented correctly. “Your current security policies can either stop people from moving into the cloud and or help you move into the cloud in a controlled manner,” Ebsworth said. THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION previously suggested changes to the legislation three years ago and as recently as last year, the European parliament also agreed to this. Despite the high level conversations it is only now that all three key parties have discussed the regulation together at a time when the representatives of each country at the Council struggled to come to a mutual agreement.

INVESTMENT BANKING THE INVESTMENT BANKS are starting to invest heavily in re-building their systems ahead of the regulation due to hit the sector in 2017. It can be predicted that while many are trying to take preventative measure, there will be a huge surge in demand for experienced risk developers further down the line, bring a shortage in supply and driving wage inflation up for these candidates.

DIRECTOR GENERAL of the European Consumer Organisation, Monique Goyens, as reported by the Guardian, said that EU laws must be updated as people are not aware of where their data is being sent. “EU laws are now lagging behind the pace of technologies and business practices. Our personal data is collected, then used and transferred in

Investment banks are continuing a familiar pattern of hiring and firing, with headline making job cuts being announced whilst in the background the Investment Banks are continuing to hire within technology and trading.

INVESTMENT BANKS are continuing a familiar pattern of hiring and firing, with headline making job cuts being announced whilst in the background the Investment Banks are continuing to hire within technology and trading. We have spoken to a large number of candidates who are continuing to interview within the Investment Banks, including going through their fairly substantial interview processes, and coming out the other side with others. There is no doubt that the bad press isn’t helping them attract candidates at the same rate as before but they are definitely still trying. CLOUD COMPUTING is making its way into the Banking world with many sectors looking at moving their systems into the cloud. Cloud computing offers a new model for delivering new client experiences that is increasing the level of efficiency in the way they operate. The market is becoming more competitive than ever with revolutionary ideas breathing down the neck of powerhouses more than ever. It is key to the Investment banking world that they keep investing and remain at the forefront of technology.


A S S E T / W E A LT H / I N V E S T M E N T MANAGEMENT & HEDGE FUNDS THE ROLE OF ROBO-ADVISORS within the Wealth / Investment Management space could begin to make a major impact with many large institutions and Consultancies looking into this field. With Schroders’ investment into Nutmeg last year, it may not be long before we see the traditional investment managers use technology further to increase their productivity and create efficiencies. TRADITIONAL WEALTH MANAGERS will also be able to offer their clients a professional and affordable service for people who are looking to make investments under £2 million. With the entire financial services sector keeping an eye on ways of disintermediating existing services, or indeed offering more services at competitive rates, this is sure to be an exciting area for the sector. KNOWLEDGE of MiFID continues to be in high demand as the industry drives towards the coming years announcements and deadlines for MiFID 2. In particular, clients are looking for people who worked on the first MiFID and have good knowledge around the kind of information which will be required. DEVOPS AND AUTOMATION have been a sought after skill in the Buy-side space of late, with many looking to recruit new specialist in devops to fully automate their environments in Q1 and Q2. We are expecting to see the same in Q3 and Q4 with many already putting plans in place to add these kinds of projects to the budget for 2015.

Knowledge of MiFID continues to be in high demand as the industry drives towards the coming years announcements and deadlines for MiFID 2. In particular, clients are looking for people who worked on the first MiFID and have good knowledge around the kind of information which will be required.

C O N S U LTA N C I E S BIG DATA ANALYTIC PROJECTS seem to be the flavour of the quarter for large consultants who have been recruited by large organisations. We have come to the time of year where clients will look at H1 2015 trends and make comparisons with H1 2014. They are also looking to gear up to drive business from what they did in H22014 and how they can effect this H2. Qlikview, Hadoop, Surveillance and SQL Big data technologies is where the market is driving towards. We are finding consultancies who are signing large scale projects to review historical data for large trading organisations to help make better decisions to capitalise on the current book the UK is experiencing. Contract roles by the dozen are being released with exceptional day rates reaching up to £650 per day for Qlikview and SQL experienced consultants.


EVENTS, PUBLICATIONS &

IARRINGTON STARR ANNOUNCEMENTS

THE FINTECH INFLUENCERS We are delighted to announce that the third meeting of the FinTech Influencers has been confirmed for the evening of September 17th at 1, Cornhill. This is an invitation only group bringing together 100 of the most influential names in UK FinTech. This meeting boasts an all start panel debating the issues around Cyber Crime in the space as follows:

● How can FinTech help keep the market clean and safe from abuse? ● Cyber crime is a reality with criminals often one step ahead of the firms they are targeting. ● How can FinTech innovators help firms to protect themselves and their clients? Many FS firms are using legacy systems and technologies that are inherently more vulnerable to cyber crime (especially in post trade arena where payments are actually being made). Choice becomes do we invest in defending existing functionality or invest in new technology or processes to mitigate the risk. The panel will discuss the current state of affairs and will consider the options the firms have to put in place the necessary protections and to leverage the FinTech sector as key enablers. The panel, moderated by Mike O’Hara, includes: Russell King Founder and CEO of Paycasso.

Marco Morana SVP Information Security Architecture at Citi, Cyber Security Author, Managing Director of start-up Minded Security UK Limited and mentor at the Citi Innovation Lab, L39 and the Cyber Security Accelerator.

Conor Kiernan CTO, Marshall Wace.

Nik Whitfield Founder & CEO of Panaseer, Cyber Security Thought Leader and speaker, and founder of the London and New York CyberTech Meetup groups.

Should you be interested in joining us on the evening and finding out more about the FinTech influencers, please call us.


FURTHER GROWTH Thanks to our incredible community of clients, consultants and candidates we are growing and are looking to take on fifteen new consultants in 2015. A diverse range of backgrounds have proved successful including prior IT recruitment experience, ex FinTech sales professionals, former members of the armed forces, sportsmen, graduates, estate agents and sales professionals. The doors are open to those with an ambition to change an industry, be customer driven and to provide a world class service. We have two exciting new starters to announce in the coming weeks to stay tuned to our Twitter and LinkedIn pages. Please get in touch to find out more about how we can make your success our business.


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IARRINGTON fARR Imagine if you had a Recruitment partner whose purpose was to help you grow.

Imagine if you had a Recruitment partner that believed better people made by better clients, better candidates and better people.

Imagine if you had a Recruitment partner that cared as much about putting the right people into the right businesses, as they did about investing back into the community they belonged. You can! Harrington Starr. Your Success, Our Business. In 2010 we launched Harrington Starr and over the past five years we have become the Global Leaders in Financial Services and Commodities Technology recruitment, insight, events & consultancy. Delivering high quality opportunities for professionals on a permanent, retained, contract, and interim basis, to over 500 partners within the sector. Harrington Starr Company Registration Number: 7246003 Company Headquarters: Vintners Place 68 Upper Thames Street London, EC4V 3BJ Company Telephone Number: 0203 587 7007 Company Email: [email protected] Company Registered Address: Cornerstone House, 9 Lord Chancellor Walk, Kingston Upon Thames, Surrey, KT2 7HG.

For more information, please contact: Toby Babb at Harrington Starr T: 0203 002 2850 F: 0207 022 1750 E: [email protected]


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