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Symphony Innovate 2021: Connecting People with Purpose - From In-Person to Digital

  • Katherine Kilpatrick
  • Innovation
Earlier this week, I am happy to say we hosted our first in-person Symphony Innovate in over two years. Things, of course, worked a bit differently this year for the attendees gathered in person, but coming together with members of the Symphony community was something we all dearly missed! Hundreds of digital attendees also tuned in around the globe to see live demos of new products and integrations, and to hear discussions between financial services and technology leaders from around the globe.

Below are some of my highlights from the day – if you missed any of these sessions, or would like to revisit your favorite parts of the agenda, take a look at all videos on our replay site.

Introducing Symphony Vol. 2: Interfirm Workflows

Symphony CEO Brad Levy opened the day with a keynote address highlighting the importance of connecting people with purpose and building the right workflows across Interfirm, Wealth, and Operations. “It’s about enabling front-to-back workflows across all asset classes,” he stated, “making complex tech highly accessible for all market participants.” Brad also highlighted key new partnerships and brought the newest members of the Symphony family – Cloud9 and StreetLinx – on stage to showcase live the integrations of the three platforms.

“If you care about your users, if you really care about your network, you are going to be interoperable. It’s not a question for Velocity or Symphony, it must fit into your strategy.” – Alejandra Villagra, Global Head of Citi Velocity and Digital Solutions, Citi”

Latest Innovations from the Community: From Private Wealth to Operations

The day continued with live demonstrations from FinTech Studios and Sycomore Asset Management, Symphony, and Quant Insights and Bornite Capital. Also featured is a fireside chat with our CPO and Zoom’s Global CIO where they touched on the impact of digital work and the future of technology.

“Interoperability has been a core theme of Zoom as a platform since our founding 10 years ago.. The integration with Symphony is a clear demonstration of that because I think what we’re all looking for – and have always all been looking for – is the notion of having a seamless, frictionless work environment. – Harry Moseley, Global CIO, Zoom”

We also dived into the operations space with live demonstrations of the Symphony and AccessFintech integration, introduced new features like of the Secure Event Service and Groups, and heard from a panel with leaders from BlackRock, BNY Mellon, Citi, and JP Morgan Asset Management.

I think it’s time for change. I think it’s time for us to change our mindset, the way we collaborate, a shared space is the future. And for me, if I can come in and open up my laptop or open up my desktop and I can see the collaboration going on, that’s one less phone call, that’s one less email I have to make. – Rochelle Hardy-Blunt, Global Head of Trade Operations, BlackRock

What's next for Financial Services Technology

The day wrapped up with a section focused on interoperability. Technology leaders from Cosaic, FINOS, Glue42, and Symphony discussed the roles of interoperability, FDC3, and integration in today’s digital world.

“Increasingly we see data and workflow moving across these functional areas even within one orporaton. Now, those are, conceptually, different desktops but they now need to communicate…” – Jane Gavronsky, CTO, FINOS

Last but certainly not least, our President and CFO, Ben Chrnelich, joined Christin Brown, Global Financial Services Strategy & Solutions Lead of Google Cloud, for a fireside chat where they touched on the partnership between the two firms, the role of cloud services, and future technology trends.

“In the past three years [the winners have] been who’s been adopting the ecosystem and thinking of it as an ecosystem …by adopting who’s got the best at the time and you don’t have to do it yourself, those are the [firms] that are going faster.” – Christin Brown, Global Financial Services Strategy & Solutions Lead, Google Cloud

It truly was an action-packed day and I could not have been happier to connect in-person and digital attendees from around the globe. To view all sessions from this year’s event, visit our replay page and check out Twitter and LinkedIn for even more event content.

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