What a great way to get involved with a new company. After only a few weeks on board with The A-Team Group it was all systems go for our two flagship events in London last week, where we were able to showcase the range of industry debate around the market dynamics driving pre- and post-trade technology activity.
First up was Tuesday’s Intelligent Trading Summit which both embraced the well-established Low Latency forums, as well as extending the discourse to the tools, applications and analytics that are now empowered by the now widely-embedded latency capabilities. And almost without pausing for breath, it was straight into Thursday’s Data Management Summit which was another lively session which many participants regarded as the best yet.
And we are now looking forward to building on the success of both at a unique event in New York on May 13, where we will provide opportunities for integrated sessions where the subjects overlap alongside separate workshops and panel events for the specialists to diverge.
In the run-up to the ITS kick-off it was like the proverbial swan, gliding serenely around the lake while paddling furiously below the water to make progress. It’s amazing what goes on behind these scenes to make the events a success for sponsors and delegates alike. And all that work paid off as from Tibco’s Alessandro Petroni’s opening keynote it went without a hitch – even over-running well beyond the official close as delegates were completely engaged in the day’s final workshop from AZUL Systems’ CEO Gil Tene, despite the lure of networking refreshments!
Alessandro set the perfect tone as he examined the required architecture for enabling Intelligent Trading, followed closely by a panel discussion on the practicalities of achieving it – with some particular insight from BNP Paribas’ Richard on how the fixed income team there had combined latency, analytics and big data to enhance performance.
During the day we delved into subjects as diverse (but inevitably inter-twined) as Big Data, High Performance Computing, Managed Service & Cloud capabilities and Algo Trading, among others. It wasn’t surprising that most panel discussions ran out of time – which bodes well for the next summits where we will provide plenty of opportunities for the debates to resume.
We were also fortunate to hear two compelling keynotes either side of lunch as first Fidessa strategy director Steve Grob set out his vision for Intelligent Trading, and then MathWorks’ Steve Wilcockson provided a fascinating insight into the often-overlooked requirement to meet the skills gap that the leaps in trading and technology capabilities is now creating. Both were about where this industry is going in the future and the general mood reflected a growing optimism across the trading room environment that hasn’t been acknowledged for some time.
So, a fiery baptism for me, a unique opportunity for many others to renew old associations and a perfect forum for the industry to network and discuss the best practises around the use of technology to improve performance and competitiveness and deliver better results for customers. It was a privilege to be part of it and I look forward to engaging with you both at the next events and regularly in between as well, for which we are developing many new ideas for this community to engage more effectively and more frequently. Watch this space.
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