Around the world, the financial services industry is undergoing a profound generational change which presents tremendous opportunities for innovation. One of the most fundamental shifts, and the one that requires the biggest shift in mindset, is the importance of the innovation ecosystem. The innovation ecosystem offers a host of opportunities for firms willing to adopt the behaviors necessary to succeed in this new environment including:
- Partnering with third parties to maximize value
- Seizing opportunities enabled by new, cutting edge technologies
- Cooperating with new entrants
- Reinventing the customer experience in the context of this ecosystem.
At this year’s Innovation and Insight Day, attendees heard firsthand accounts of firms who have achieved success within this new ecosystem and learn how they can emulate their success within their organizations.
The event also served as a showcase for the winners of Celent's annual 「モデルバンク・アワード」 Awards, 「モデルインシュアラー・アワード」 Awards, 「モデルウェルスマネジャー・アワード」「モデルアセットマネジャー・アワード」 Awards, and 「モデルリスクマネジャー・アワード」 Awards.
Sponsors
Celent would like to thank the following companies for their support of this conference:
Premium sponsors
Sponsors
Select sponsorship opportunities are under development for 2019. For more information, please contact Jenna Blydell at jblydell@celent.com.
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Presentations
Sign in and click on the links below to download the presentations.
Program
Download the onsite program- 9:00 a.m. Registration
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10:00 a.m.
Welcome and Opening Comments
Craig Weber, CEO, Celent
Craig looked back at how industry trends have evolved through the lens of the awards. He then introduced our new Digital Platform, VendorMatch.
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10:30 a.m.
Morning Keynote Session — Catalyzing Innovation
Todd Schofield, Worldwide Industry Lead, Financial Services, Apple, Inc.
Todd discussed his experience combining the world of technology with financial services. He related how Apple has found success fostering innovation both internally, by giving enterprises a platform to build powerful apps on, and externally, by partnering with experts that allow them to extend their business capabilities. This hybrid approach has enabled them to bridge gaps between industries. Attendees heard about the challenges that enterprises overcome and how they are able to create meaningful value by embracing transformation and collaboration.
- 11:15 a.m. Networking Break
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11:45 a.m.
Breakout Sessions
Attendees had the chance to get up close and personal with the individuals and firms that are transforming the banking, insurance, wealth and asset management industries. They heard firsthand accounts of organizations that are finding ways to turn the theoretical into the practical by implementing successful innovations.
These highly interactive sessions also offered a variety of perspectives from firms that have not only found success with their initiatives but also found ways to take advantage of new models of innovation within their organizations.
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- 11:45 a.m. Welcoming Remarks Jamie Macgregor, Senior Vice President, Insurance, Celent
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Featured Speakers: No Limits — The Rise of BHSI
Jamie Roser, Chief Information Officer, Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance; Eugene Van Biert, Chief Revenue Officer, Duck Creek Technologies
With no IT staff and no technology, Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance faced stiff competition when it launched five years ago. Since then, the insurer has increased GWP fourfold to $1.7 billion. CIO Jamie Roser recounted how BHSI made the determination to partner with Duck Creek and leverage SaaS (Duck Creek OnDemand) to scale rapidly, contain costs, simplify and manage integrations, and leverage its data more strategically, becoming drastically more competitive in an extremely crowded landscape.
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Model Insurer Awards Presentation: Digital and Omnichannel, Artificial Intelligence and Data, Legacy Modernization
We learned about this year’s winning initiatives as Celent analysts discussed the innovations that inspired them.
Donald Light — Digital and Omnichannel
Craig Beattie — Artificial Intelligence and Data
Tom Scales — Legacy Modernization
- 1:15 pm Networking Luncheon
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2:00 pm
Digitizing the Customer Experience: A New Framework
Karlyn Carnahan, Head of Americas Property & Casualty, Celent
We learned about a new framework for a customer-centric approach and the digital ecosystem that is required to accompany it.
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Model Insurer Awards Presentation: Operational Excellence, Innovation and Emerging Technologies
Celent senior analysts continued their discussion of this year’s winning initiatives.
Colleen Risk — Operational Excellence
Mike Fitzgerald — Innovation and Emerging Technologies
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3:00pm
Model Insurer of the Year
Juan Mazzini, Senior Analyst, Celent
MiCRO is wearing the crown this year.
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- 11:45 a.m. Welcoming Remarks Dan Latimore, Senior Vice President, Banking, Celent
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Model Bank 2018 Overview
Zilvinas Bareisis, Senior Analyst, Celent
We kicked off with an overview of the Model Bank program in 2018: the number of nominations, their geographic spread, and most importantly, the overarching themes setting the innovation agenda in banking today.
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Model Bank Awards Presentation: Consumer Banking and Risk Management
Celent senior analysts announced the winners of specific awards and discussed their initiatives.
Zilvinas Bareisis — Cards Innovation, Consumer Account Onboarding and Identity Management
Stephen Greer — Consumer Channel Innovation and Best Digital Bank
Gareth Lodge — Consumer Payments, Financial Inclusion and Payments Replatforming
Joan McGowan — Risk Management and Fraud Management & Cybersecurity
Bob Meara — Customer Engagement, Personal Financial Experience and Employee Productivity
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Featured Speakers: RBC Digital Activation Strategy
Janice Diner, CEO and Founder, Horizn; Bryan Herskovits, Director, Digital Activation, RBC Royal Bank
RBC, with Horizn, shared key highlights from its compelling case study about RBC’s successful comprehensive digital activation strategy designed to quickly increase internal and external (customer) digital activation. The three-part strategy included an agile approach, a gamified learning platform, and a network of volunteer Digital Navigators.
- 1:15 pm Networking Luncheon
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2:00 pm
Model Bank Awards Presentation: Corporate and SME Banking and Legacy Transformation
Celent senior analysts continued the presentation of award winning initiatives.
Patricia Hines — Most Promising Proof of Concept, Commercial Account Onboarding and Cash Management
Alenka Grealish — Commercial Payments, Trade Finance & Supply Chain and Small Business Banking
Stephen Greer — Data Infrastructure Modernization and Core Banking Replatforming
Craig Focardi — Modernizing IT Architecture, Post-Merger Integration and Lending
Dan Latimore — Financial Wellness
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3:00 p.m.
Model Bank of the Year
Dan Latimore
Bank of America walked away with this year's top honors.
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- 11:45 a.m. Welcoming Remarks David Easthope, Senior Vice President, Securities & Investments, Celent
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Model Asset Manager Awards Presentation: Operations and Risk
Neil Katkov, PhD, Research Director, Celent
The discussion focused on risk, security, and operational excellence, integrating trends in the space with the winner of the Model Asset Manager: Operations and Risk.
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Award Presentations: Model Asset Manager and Model Wealth Manager
Celent analysts announced the winners of specific awards and discussed their initiatives.
Brad Bailey — Model Asset Manager: Emerging Innovation
David Easthope — Model Asset Manager: Core Transformation
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The Buyside and Risk Management
Neil Katkov, PhD, Research Director, Celent
We explored investment business priorities and risk dynamics in the buy side universe and considered the implications for investment and risk functions and technologies, including how to navigate digital technology to achieve alpha-oriented operations.
- 1:15 pm Networking Luncheon
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2:00 pm
Award Presentations: Model Asset Manager and Model Wealth Manager
Celent analysts announced the winners of specific awards and discussed their initiatives.
Ashley Globerman — Model Wealth Manager: Client Experience
Kelley Byrnes — Model Wealth Manager: Emerging Innovation
Will Trout — Model Wealth Manager: Platforms and Products
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Data Swamp to Data Smart
Will Trout, Senior Analyst, Celent
By demystifying data treatment and the application of AI technologies to capture information, this presentation offered a roadmap for rationalizing operational costs and jump-starting advisor efficiency.
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API Monetization Schemes
Kelley Byrnes, Analyst, Celent
We explored factors that have led to an increase in open APIs and API-powered platforms in wealth management. We focused on API monetization schemes available to wealth managers and fintechs.
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3:00 pm
CRM and the Digital Client Experience
Ashley Globerman, Analyst, Celent
Wealth managers are using digital technology to enrich advisor-client interaction. This session explored the components that make up a “good” digital client experience and how emerging technologies in CRM platforms can support flexible and customizable client journeys.
- 3:30 p.m. Networking Break
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4:00 p.m.
Consonance and Dissonance
Our team of analysts participated in three brief debates:
• Financial Institutions and Fintechs can/cannot work together — Mike Fitzgerald and Alenka Grealish
• APIs will make/break financial services firms — Kelley Byrnes and Patricia Hines
• Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning will/will not transform financial services — Nicolas Michellod and Will Trout
and offered their perspectives on the state of innovation within the industry as well as where they see the industry moving over the next few years.
- 4:30 p.m. Closing Remarks Craig Weber, CEO, Celent
- 5:00 p.m. Cocktail Reception and Raffle Giveaway
Speakers
Keynote Speaker
- Todd Schofield Worldwide Industry Lead; Financial Services Apple, Inc. Todd is Apple’s Worldwide Industry Lead for Financial Services, focused on business transformation through digitization and differentiated customer and employee experience. Prior to joining Apple, Todd was a Managing Director at Standard Chartered Bank, where he founded and ran the Bank’s Enterprise Mobility Group and also its Silicon Valley Innovation Lab.
Speakers
- Craig Weber CEO Celent Craig leads a team of associates spread across North America, Europe, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific region. He is a passionate advocate for sensibly creating business value through technology. Celent has grown significantly since Craig became CEO in 2012. In addition to maintaining the firm’s traditional coverage of IT and business strategies, he added coverage of innovation and emerging technologies. Craig is frequently featured as a speaker and his comments on business and technology topics have appeared in USA Today, The Chicago Tribune, AP Newswire, Best’s Review, Business Insurance, and Technology Decisions, and he has appeared on CNBC’s On the Money.
Banking Speakers
- Dan Latimore Senior Vice President, Banking Celent Daniel W. Latimore, CFA, is the Senior Vice President of Celent’s Banking Group and is based in the firm’s Boston office. Dan’s areas of focus include consumer behavior, innovation, and technology enabled strategy. Dan has been widely quoted in the press, including the Boston Globe, CNBC and CNBC Europe, and American Banker. He has been a frequent speaker at industry conferences and client presentations, having delivered addresses in more than a dozen countries to audiences ranging from intimate meetings with CEOs and central banks to keynote speeches to 800 people. He has held senior management positions in research groups at Deloitte and IBM, has worked in industry at Merrill Lynch and Liberty Mutual, and was a consultant at McKinsey & Co.
- Zilvinas Bareisis Senior Analyst, Payments Celent Zilvinas Bareisis is a Senior Analyst and is based in our London office. He researches and advises clients on consumer payments. He has a keen interest in payments innovation, and how the “perfect storm” of competitive (e.g. Fintech), regulatory (e.g. EMV, PSD2), and technology (e.g. digital, blockchain, Internet of Things) developments shapes consumer payments today and tomorrow. Zil has a global perspective with a particular emphasis on market developments in North America and Europe. Zil is a regular speaker, chairman, and panel moderator at the leading payments industry events. He has also been widely quoted in the press. He has over 20 years of experience advising senior executives at the leading financial institutions and their technology and service providers. Zil joined Celent from Oliver Wyman where as a management consultant he advised clients on a broad range of strategic issues.
- Janice Diner Founder and CEO Horizn Janice Diner is the CEO and Founder of Horizn, launching the company 6 years ago with global technology brands. Her creative vision and determination led to the development of a self-funded, profitable, world-class SaaS company. Horizn is a growth stage company with a high-performance Knowledge Platform that operates globally aiding companies in over 40+ countries and 15 languages. The Horizn Knowledge platform helps financial institutions and technology companies dramatically accelerate digital and mobile adoption. Janice spent the early part of her career in leading Agency roles blending senior creative leadership with business technology. She is an award winning Creative Director, an accomplished speaker, a pioneer agency brand builder and was part of the original Canadian Facebook team. Janice served as an advisor at the MaRS Discovery District helping early stage tech companies commercialize, she is a board director for the SheEO and served as a judge for the Cannes Advertising Lions.
- Craig Focardi Senior Analyst, Corporate Banking Celent Craig Focardi is a Senior Analyst and is based in our San Francisco office. Craig’s coverage areas include digital lending strategy, market sizing, and technology selection across the credit lifecycle for all consumer credit products. His advisory engagements have included core lending and banking system vendor selection for financial institutions, market feasibility and go-to market assessments for technology vendors, and technology provider acquisition due diligence for FinTech investors. Craig is a frequent speaker and moderator at industry conferences. He has also written dozens of bylined articles. Craig began his career in economics and finance and marketing in the mortgage industry for lenders and IT vendors, including The Federal Home Loan Bank, The PMI Group, Wells Fargo, and CoreLogic. Craig then spent 16 years as a banking industry analyst at TowerGroup and CEB prior to joining Celent.
- Alenka Grealish Senior Analyst, Corporate Banking Celent Alenka is a Senior Analyst and is based in our San Francisco office. She has over 20 years of consulting and research experience in the banking industry with deep expertise in payments, transaction banking, and commercial banking. Her research focuses on innovation in treasury management services, trade finance, working capital finance, and the implications for customer journeys across segments, including small business. Alenka has advised top banks on their business and technology strategies. Her consulting work has included the development of a growth strategy for the treasury management business of a leading North American bank, examination of cross-border growth opportunities in treasury management for a top European bank, and the identification and evaluation of opportunities to enable small to medium-sized businesses to automate their payment processes. Prior to rejoining Celent, she worked for The Boston Consulting Group, where she was the global segment manager for transaction banking and payments. She started her career as an associate economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
- Stephen Greer Senior Analyst, Banking Celent Stephen Greer is a Senior Analyst and is based in New York City. He focuses on retail banking trends, with an emphasis on fintech startups, emerging technology, and digital transformation. He has worked with some of the largest banks in the US and around the globe to influence digital strategies and identify opportunities in the space. Prior to his current home in New York, Stephen was based out of Madrid, concentrating on issues related to banking across Europe. Stephen’s recent consulting work includes: market entry strategy for a global financial services vendor, market opportunity assessment for large tier 1, and digital transformation strategic assessment for large tier 1 bank. Stephen has been a frequent speaker at large conferences as well as at industry roundtables and vendor events. He has been quoted in publications such as Forbes, The San Francisco Chronicle, American Banker, Banking Exchange, and others.
- Bryan Herskovits Director, Digital Activation RBC Royal Bank In his current role, Bryan leads the strategic development and execution of the Digital Activation Strategy. His focus is on driving client and employee adoption of digital channels through a cross platform activation strategy. In this role, he helps to drive digital adoption of existing products, enables the RBC ecosystem to bring new digital products to market, while at the same time, exploring innovations that help blur the lines between Digital and Physical realities. He has an extensive background in innovation, including a prior role working in RBC’s Technology and Operations’ Applied Innovation team and the Cards and Payments’ Innovation team. Bryan spearheaded North America’s first Virtual Reality immersive banking experience, where RBC ranked the highest of any financial institution in PaymentsSource.com’s rankings of Unconventional Loyalty Programs. Bryan has also worked in Personal and Commercial Banking Strategy and Strategic Performance Management, and as a Senior Personal & Commercial Account Manager for Health Care Banking.
- Patricia Hines Senior Analyst, Banking Celent Patricia Hines, CTP, is a Senior Analyst and is based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her areas of research include global transaction services and wholesale banking with a particular emphasis on treasury and cash management, corporate banking delivery channels, and trade and supply chain finance, along with commercial and small business lending. Patty has over 20 years of experience in financial services. Prior to Celent, she was a Research Director in Wholesale Banking at CEB TowerGroup, where she conducted primary research focused on industry trends, strategic business drivers, and technology solutions in commercial lending and small business services. She has also had positions at FleetBoston Financial, Wells Fargo, Citibank, MuleSoft, OpenText GXS, and S1 Corporation (now ACI Worldwide).
- Gareth Lodge Senior Analyst, Payments Celent Gareth Lodge is a Senior Analyst and is based in our London office. His research focuses on payments. Gareth has been widely quoted in the media, including Financial Times, BBC News, CNBC, Bloomberg, Computer Weekly, CardLine, Silicon, American Banker and European Card Review. He is a frequent speaker at such events as SIBOS, EBADay, NACHA Payments, and the Global Payments Forum. Prior to Celent, Gareth worked for Secura Monde International, where he was a Senior Consultant. Prior to that, he was a Regional Research Director of European payments at CEB TowerGroup. He has also worked in corporate strategy at VocaLink Ltd., been an Information Manager at The Technology Exchange Ltd., and was a Senior Researcher at Disclosure First Contact.
- Joan McGowan Senior Analyst, Risk Celent Joan McGowan is a Senior Analyst and is based in Atlanta, Georgia. Her research focus is on risk management, regulatory compliance, data security, and data analytics, with a concentration on disruptive technologies for risk transparency and data visualization. She brings a “risk-reward” perspective to strategic decision-making. Joan has over 15 years of experience with technology and growth strategies for global financial markets. She has worked as a Senior Strategist with the leading financial service technology providers FIS Global, Fiserv, and FICO, serving global, international, regional, and midsize banks and credit unions. Prior to that, Joan was a Researcher for BBC North News, and a Managing Editor for The Economist Group.
- Bob Meara Senior Analyst, Banking Celent Bob Meara is a Senior Analyst and is based in Atlanta, Georgia. His research focuses on the branch and ATM delivery channels, customer analytics and check and cash payment processing technologies. A well-known authority on remote deposit capture, Bob has led multiple consulting engagements, including several proprietary research projects involving financial services hardware, software and the impact of self-service on branch banking. Before joining Celent, Bob was the Director of Product Marketing at Alogent. In this role, he positioned and launched a series of Check 21 payments solutions. Prior to Alogent, Bob also held positions at Stonebridge Technologies, Telemate.net Software, BellSouth, Hayes Corporation, and Procter & Gamble in addition to being a commissioned naval officer.
Insurance Speakers
- Jamie Macgregor Senior Vice President, Insurance Celent Jamie Macgregor is Senior Vice President for Celent’s insurance practice and is based in our London office. Within Celent, Jamie has led the development of Celent’s innovation framework and has been a major contributor to shaping Celent’s global insurance agenda. Jamie’s research focuses on IT strategy and the technology challenges facing the European life and pensions market, contributing to the debate around core systems replacement, BPO strategies, the impact of regulation, and, more recently, innovation management. Jamie’s career spans over 18 years in both management consulting and the insurance industry. While in industry, Jamie performed a number of key lead IT/Business interface roles, such as Head of IT Strategy for AXA UK & Ireland, and led change delivery at both AIG and Zurich Financial Services.
- Craig Beattie Senior Analyst, Insurance Celent Craig Beattie is a Senior Analyst and is based in our London office. He brings extensive experience in the use of enterprise architecture and applications architecture practices in the insurance industry, working with and within insurers. Craig has advised insurers on IT strategy, legacy modernization, insurance vendor analysis and enterprise architecture topics, principally in the EMEA region. Since joining Celent, he has been a speaker at industry events in North America and London, as well as Celent events in Europe. He has spoken on topics such as the influence of mobile on the industry, the use of social networks by insurers and how the evolving use of the Internet, data and IoT will influence insurance in the future. Recent consulting clients have engaged Craig for policy administration vendor analyses, market entry strategies, and product messaging work for insurance vendors. Prior to joining Celent, Craig was an applications architect with Royal Bank of Scotland Group’s Strategy and Architecture team, working extensively with RBS Insurance.
- Karlyn Carnahan Head of Americas, Property & Casualty Research, Insurance Celent Karlyn Carnahan leads Celent’s Property & Casualty research across the Americas and is based in San Francisco. She focuses on issues related to digital transformation. She’s particularly interested in shifting distribution channels, new ways of enabling and managing channels, underwriting transformation and new products, improving claims, and transforming the customer experience. Karlyn is the lead analyst for questions related to distribution management, underwriting and claims, core systems, and operational excellence. Karlyn’s consulting experience includes numerous systems selection projects across policy admin, billing, claims, loss control, CRM, and other core systems. She has also completed multiple IT organizational assessments, primary market research of insurance agents for carriers, marketing and product roadmap strategies for multiple software vendors and other strategic projects for carriers primarily related to marketing, underwriting and claims. She is frequently asked to present at industry events.
- Mike Fitzgerald Senior Analyst, Insurance Celent Mike Fitzgerald is a Senior Analyst with Celent’s Insurance practice based in Cary, North Carolina. His career includes leadership positions in property/casualty automation, operations management and insurance product development. Mike’s research focuses on innovation, billing, business process and operations, social media, and distribution management. Mike brings extensive industry experience to the analyst role. Prior to joining Celent, he was Vice President of Enterprise Underwriting solutions at Zurich North America, where he led the evaluation of technology alternatives to support a new underwriting product development process. He held a number of positions at Royal & Sun Alliance. His technology implementation experience includes the installation and maintenance of billing, automobile policy administration, and workers compensation automation.
- Donald Light Director, Americas, Property/Casualty Practice Celent Donald Light is the Director of Celent’s Americas Property/Casualty Insurance Practice. His research and consulting focuses on: technology and business strategy, policy administration, underwriting, claims, reinsurance, and risk analytics. His recent consulting work includes: developing a strategic IT plan for a specialty insurer, vendor selection advisory work for rating, policy administration, and claims; a build vs. buy analysis for core systems; and several due diligence projects for acquisitions. Donald has been widely quoted in the press and media, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Financial Times, The Economist, NBC and CBS Evening News, CNBC, and National Public Radio. Prior to joining Celent, Donald was an insurance subject matter expert with Sapient.
- Juan Mazzini Senior Analyst, Insurance Celent Juan Mazzini is a Senior Analyst and is based in Miami, Florida. Responsible for driving research and providing advisory to C-level executives in the financial services industry in themes such as fintech, insurtech, innovation, emerging technology and business transformation. His work includes advising firms based in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. Juan’s career spans more than 25 years in the insurance and banking IT industries. He is a frequent speaker at industry events, contributor to many conferences, and evaluator for technology competitions. He has also mentoring experience in diverse industries. Prior to joining Celent, Juan was Corporate Vice President at Sistran, where he directly contributed to expanding its presence throughout 14 countries, including the US and key Latin American markets of Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Central America, and the Caribbean. He brings a deep understanding of core and noncore systems projects and operational business models.
- Nicolas Michellod Senior Analyst, Insurance Celent Nicolas is a Senior Analyst and is based in Zurich, Switzerland. His research concentrates on continental European insurance markets with a specific focus on continental Europe and insurance systems including life policy administration, customer communication management, predictive analytics and data technology providers. Since joining Celent, Nicolas has advised multiple insurance companies and vendors on IT and business strategies including strategic IT programme alignment, partnership evaluation, conceptualization of cross-country system implementations, and IT vendor selection and strategy. Nicolas started his career in the financial industry with Credit Suisse. He moved to the insurance sector, taking over a management position at UNIQA, the Swiss subsidiary of the second largest Austrian insurance company. He eventually became part-time CEO of the Swiss entity and moved to the UNIQA Group headquarters in Vienna, Austria. There he led projects for the international entity of the group in various Eastern European countries.
- Colleen Risk Senior Analyst, Insurance Celent Colleen Risk is a Senior Analyst in Celent’s Insurance practice and is based in our Chicago office. She focuses on life insurance business architecture, new business acquisition and underwriting, and large transformation program change management. Colleen has diverse consulting experience including building and managing a business process outsourcing operation for a top reinsurer, commercializing a black box underwriting algorithm, performing end-to-end technology assessments, evaluating software for vendor selection, integrating and designing straight-through new business acquisition processing, and modernizing legacy policy administration systems. Colleen’s career began at PALLM, where she was a developer. She was also Chief Operations Officer at Vector Technologies, LLC and Vector Insurance Services. Prior to joining Celent, Colleen worked at Majesco Mastek and was also an independent consultant.
- Jamie Roser Chief Information Officer Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance Jamie Roser is Chief Information Officer at Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance. He started his career in 1985 as a Programmer/Analyst at Travelers Insurance, and later served as an Associate Partner within Accenture’s insurance practice. Most recently, he was Chief Information Officer at Alterra Capital. Roser earned a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science and Math from Colgate University and a Master’s in Business Administration from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. BHSI started out of a single office in Boston in 2013 and now has operations in 11 countries, offering more than 100 commercial insurance products. The IT organization’s strategic priorities include providing BHSI with a loss-ratio advantage, among the lowest IT costs in the industry, and clear operational efficiencies. BHSI has partnered with a few select firms to help create a global platform and achieve these strategic priorities.
- Tom Scales Head, Americas, Life and Health Celent Tom leads life and health research across the Americas. His research focuses on operational best practices, real-world case studies and the application of vendor technology. His particular passion is to challenge life insurers to move faster in innovation as well as operational and IT transformation. He also leads a broad range of consulting projects, such as transformation project health checks, Deep Dive strategies for both insurers and vendors, and a variety of system selection projects. Tom also leads the Life, Annuity, and Health practice in the Americas. Tom is an industry veteran. His early experience was primarily with vendors, in a broad variety of roles from the most technical to sales and marketing to executive leadership. Later in his career, he led operations and technology for Crump, the nation’s largest life and annuity brokerage. More recently, he led the operations and technology organizations at Transamerica, for their US Life insurance companies, including both agent and worksite companies.
- Eugene Van Biert Chief Revenue Officer Duck Creek Technologies As Duck Creek’s Chief Revenue Officer, Eugene Van Biert is responsible for sales and global revenue generation, defining, and executing growth strategies that deliver significant value to all stakeholders. Prior to joining Duck Creek Technologies, he helped increase annual sales from $19 million USD in 2001 to more than $400 million USD in 2014 at Skillsoft, the global leader in enterprise e-learning and human capital management, where he spent 15 years in sales and marketing leadership roles and general management. In addition to total P&L responsibility and accountability for delivering to the business unit’s operating plan, Eugene provided strategic direction for the growth of the business, its competitive advantage, and long-term strategic position as a global provider of compliance training solutions.
Wealth and Asset Management Speakers
- David Easthope Senior Vice President, Securities & Investments Celent David Easthope is the Senior Vice President of Celent’s Securities & Investments practice and is based in San Francisco. His expertise lies in electronic trading, market venues, and market structure. David’s research focuses on themes of strategic importance in the capital markets sector, including the evolution of market structure, the development of advanced and algorithmic trading, and innovations in both software and services. His recent consulting work involves advising clients on developing advanced trading platforms and new market venues. He has also advised strategic and private equity investors on innovation and trends to help them make more informed investment decisions in the capital markets arena. David has been widely referenced in the press, including Bloomberg, Financial Times, and CNBC.
- Brad Bailey Research Director, Capital Markets Celent Brad Bailey is a Research Director and is based in the firm’s New York office. He is an expert in electronic trading of equities, foreign exchange derivatives, credit, rates, and futures. His research focus is on emerging technology and trading technology across asset classes. Brad has more than 20 years of Wall Street industry experience in trading, technology, sales, strategy, analysis, and consulting. A noted thought leader, he is quoted in the industry and general press, including: WSJ, Financial Times, Bloomberg Business Week, and Forbes, as well as radio and TV. Prior to Celent, he spent nearly seven years at KCG Holdings (formerly Knight Capital) as the Director of Business Development and Corporate Strategy.
- Kelley Byrnes Analyst, Wealth and Asset Management Celent Kelley Byrnes is an Analyst with Celent’s Wealth Management practice and is based in our New York office. Kelley has worked on strategic planning for advisor-facing technology and on fixed income trading desks. Kelley also has experience is sales and partnerships, driving channel strategy, regulation, and technical projects for financial institutions. Prior to joining Celent, Kelley was a director at Barclay Investments. She also held positions at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, as an assistant vice president in the wealth management practice and as an analyst on the fixed income institutional sales desk.
- Ashley Globerman Analyst, Wealth and Asset Management Celent Ashley Globerman is an Analyst and is based in the firm’s London office. Her research spans the North American and European wealth management markets with a focus on digital strategies and innovation for the self-directed and retail brokerage segments. Ashley’s research also covers wealth management vendor solutions and customer/generational market segmentation models. Ashley has been quoted in a number of trade publications, including: Yahoo Finance, FTSE Global Markets, IBS intelligence, Chartered Banker, eFinancialNews, Finextra, Private Asset Management (PAM) magazine, and WealthBriefing.com. Prior to joining Celent, Ashley was based in New York and worked for Credit Suisse Asset Management on the institutional sales and consultant coverage teams for North America.
- Neil Katkov, PhD Research Director, Risk Management and Compliance Celent Neil Katkov, PhD, oversees the Risk Management and Compliance space at Celent and is based in San Francisco. His expertise focuses on financial crime, anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your customer (KYC) compliance, AML/KYC technology, and regtech. Neil initiated Celent’s influential research on AML compliance and technology in 2002. He regularly advises leading financial institutions and technology vendors on their business, technology, and compliance strategies. His advisory engagements have included vendor selection for financial institutions, market feasibility studies for financial institutions and technology vendors, and strategic due diligence on a number of the leading compliance vendors. Neil has been widely quoted in the press and is a popular speaker at conferences. Neil previously launched and managed Celent’s presence in Asia for 15 years and helped establish Celent’s market-leading position in Japan.
- Will Trout Senior Analyst, Wealth and Asset Management Celent William Trout is a Senior Analyst and is based in Houston, Texas. His research centers on technology strategy and innovation in the securities, wealth management, and banking industries. He has particular expertise in customer experience, data analytics, segmentation, remote delivery models, and pricing and product design. Within the wealth management arena, his interests include financial planning, investment advisory, retail brokerage, and trust. Prior to joining Celent, William was head of product and segment development for affluent and high net worth customers within BBVA Compass, as well as a member of the BBVA Group’s global Private Banking management team.