A key challenge for today’s financial technology leaders is to find ways to deliver creative solutions in increasingly complex and structured environments. ‘Controlled creativity’. They may sound mutually exclusive, but it can be done.
One key to success as is to have the right juxtaposition of strategic and grounded, hands-on skill sets. So while the balance of my time is spent in managing teams, I find the right opportunities to continually develop and exercise the hands-on skills that actually get the work done.
At the strategic level, I manage technology programs covering multiple lines of business in analytics and advisory, etrading and asset management areas. This includes partnering with senior business and operations leaders to drive the definition, prioritization and execution of large portfolios.
At the same time, to stay grounded – to make sure what appears to be a good idea on paper makes sense in messy reality – I personally define and document requirements and design for select projects, work with Python developing for example routines to detect specific time series patterns, use R to develop and tune predictive models, set portal configurations with Liferay, or use Gephi for visualization of social networks.
Another success factors for technology leaders is adaptability and breadth of experience:
I have worked in definition of cross-organizational incident and problem management routines, worked with front office desks on advisory market data, analytics and eTrading functionality, have led efforts to deliver solutions for Asset Management Services, and am a technology liaison to front office, operations, legal, compliance and marketing groups.
Lastly, a global view can greatly broaden one’s views:
I have been an expat in India, part of a team that setup a development center in New Delhi. I have worked with clients in the UK and Japan. I have travelled to over 50 countries and have family in seven, and I am fluent in Spanish.
