You’ve held many senior roles in the past but this is your first time in the big chair. How does it feel?
It feels very natural, to be honest, and a position that I feel I have iterated into over the past couple of years. Having Raj and the broader team’s support has been a big factor in making this transition seamless.
Can you tell us a bit about your journey to get here and what you’ve learned along the way?
Well, I have been in financial services for more than 25 years, when I say it frankly it sounds scary. I started my career back in Cardiff, Wales, at Chemical Bank as a temp on a six-week contract to pay off my first year of university debts. That resulted in a 12-year career as the bank morphed into J.P. Morgan. I think this vignette probably sums up what I have learnt most, you will be presented with opportunities over your career and it is important you look to maximise these when they come, but, equally, it is important that you do so by operating in the right manner.
After J.P. Morgan, I moved to Lehman Brothers prime brokerage where I was struck by the energy and passion of the business. I learned a huge amount from my time there before transitioning over to Nomura, where I held various sales and trading roles.
Over the past 25 years, I have always enjoyed working in a team and building close and hopefully trusted relationships with clients and trading counterparts.
When I joined Pirum in 2016 from Nomura, it was seen as a surprising move by some in the industry to move from an established entity like Nomura to a fintech. At the time not many of my peers were shifting from banks or asset managers to fintechs. However, for me, it felt like the right time for a new challenge and to pivot my career.
You’ve taken over at Pirum at time of flux for the industry. Did you have a plan for your first 100 days?
The CEO transition is something Raj, the board and I have been working towards for most of the year, so the change hasn’t come as a major shock for us at Pirum. I will be adding to my management team, so you can expect some news on that front in the coming weeks. This includes Jat Soomal who has just taken over from David Cook as CFO. We are also due to welcome a new head of sales and a chief technology officer, which is a new role we created to supplement the depth of our technology bench after Raj’s change in role.
Additionally, culture, diversity and inclusion are aspects that are very important to me and the Pirum team. We are currently developing work streams to ensure we are meeting and exceeding expectations in these areas. For example, staff members will be offered training to raise awareness of subjects and areas of learning including unconscious biases that interfere with the interview process as well as how they can affect decision making in normal business life.
During the lockdown period, have been keen to invest in our staff members’ health and wellbeing and have checked in with everyone regularly through engagement and outreach sessions. Before the pandemic took over we were about to start offering yoga sessions in the office and purchase exercise bikes to give staff more opportunities to maintain a healthy work-life balance, which is extremely important to me and the team.
This all comes as part of developing our own environmental, social and governance policy which also includes several outreach programmes we run with a local homeless shelter and also promoting technology skills in schools.
In terms of our business offering, automation is the name of the game at Pirum and always has been, so this is not likely to change. However, more recently we have seen the increasing importance of connectivity (be it to counterparts, venues or market infrastructure providers). Recent regulatory requirements and business disruption seen as a result of covid, have highlighted the need for greater efficiency in our market more than ever before.
Overall, we have a relatively defined and detailed business plan for the next two to three years, so much of my focus will be centred around the execution of this. That said, there is nothing more certain in this industry than change and therefore, it is important we stay flexible and embrace new opportunities with a growth mindset and even enjoy them when they arise!
SFTR is halfway live but other regulations are still to come. How big are these challenges and what is Pirum doing to solve them?
The Securities Financing Transactions Regulation (SFTR) has been an extremely interesting and at times demanding journey for us, our partner IHS Markit, and our clients. What we have learnt as an industry is that we can evolve, adapt and change, but most of all we have shown the benefit of collaboration.
The design partnership approach we took to solve SFTR proved to be extremely effective. The upcoming regulations will absolutely have their challenges, however, if we communicate and work together as an industry, they will be dealt with and met. Interestingly, I do think the regulations will actually act as a catalyst for us in creating a better ecosystem of interoperability and automation.
ISLA and other industry participants have regularly called on service providers to collaborate more. After your partnership with IHS Markit would you be open to joining forces with other complementary firms again?
Our partnership with IHS Markit on SFTR has been hugely successful and we also recently begun work on a joint solution with Wematch to develop a fully-integrated front-to-back securities finance transaction service solution for mutual clients leveraging the Wematch platform.
There has to be a business case and demand from customers for a joint venture but if that’s there then our door is always open.
Pirum is eyeing a further push into North America? What will this look like?
We have a great team based in our New York office. The growth will be a natural evolution as we look to assist our clients meet their automation requirements in US and Canada. We have five people in the now and expect to double that team over the next 18 months. We will also be adding products in the coming year and we are very fortunate to have the support of some major market participants in this pursuit.
Pirum already has a broad suite of services and solutions but I’m sure there’s also a busy development pipeline. What can we expect to hit the shop floor over the next 12 months?
Lots of exciting new products are being developed in our innovation hubs and in collaboration with our clients. We are looking to further enhance automation in the securities finance arena, including repo and collateral management. Additionally, we are working with our clients in to determine requirements in the data, trading and connectivity space, as well as developing solutions in the derivatives sector.
What inspires me most and made my decision on the new role very easy, is the fantastic team we have at Pirum. They surprise and challenge me daily and I know are greatly appreciated by our clients, so the development pipeline is in great hands.
I am hugely excited by this opportunity and look forward to working with our clients to deliver exciting solutions.
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