Wei-Shen and Tony take a look at some headlines involving ESG. Come for the headlines, stay for the snark.

This week, Wei-Shen and Tony discuss some headlines from across the industry.

2:30 Texas woos financial services firms located in New Jersey. (Dallas Morning News)

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/technology/2020/11/09/nasdaq-and-other-trading-exchanges-to-meet-with-texas-gov-abbott-about-potential-move/#:~:text=The%20Dallas%20Morning%20News%20reported,the%20state's%20business%2Dfriendly%20environment.

11:00 Goldman moving staff to lower-cost cities around the US/World. (Business Insider)

https://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-sachs-staff-low-cost-hubs-dallas-salt-lake-bangalore-2020-11

24:30 The best programming languages & platforms for data science in finance. (efinancialcareers)

https://news.efinancialcareers.com/us-en/3004783/graham-giller-data-science-finance

David Hardoon, senior advisor for data and artificial intelligence at UnionBank of the Philippines, joins to discuss all things artificial intelligence and machine learning.

4:00 David talks about his previous role at the Monetary Authority of Singapore. What can you do vs. what should you do?

8:30 He explains how the accessibility of data and ML tools can lead to the convergence of ML algos.

15:00 How do firms get an edge? Hope is not a strategy.

18:00 Simulation is key in exploiting operational alpha.

27:30 How does adversarial AI play a part in this?

33:00 What should traders do to ensure authenticity?

40:00 David explains what operationalizing data and AI at UnionBank means.

This week on the podcast, Wei-Shen talks with Victor Alexiev, director and head of programs and strategic partnerships for Citi Ventures APAC. They talk about some of the challenges and opportunities within banks and how D10X—Citi Venture’s internal entrepreneurship program, which looks at moonshot projects—tackles them.

3:30 – Victor joins the podcast and gives an overview of Citi Ventures and its three pillars—investment, exploration, and learning.

10:30 – Then he delves into some of the projects D10X has worked on recently.

13:00 – Most of the solutions don’t necessitate using emerging technologies.

15:00 – Defining the problem comes first.

20:00 – Challenges and themes Citi Ventures and D10X are looking at. In Asia, Citi is interested in the lifecycle of tokenized securities.

28:30 – Victor explains how the team at D10X is expandable.

32:00 – The team is looking at advanced data analytics, ML, and NLP to mine external content for signals.

After a couple late postponements, Wei-Shen and Tony just spend the show having a conversation about Tony’s new pool cue and other nonsense (start of podcast), some conversation about the current M&A market (5:00), and then they get into politics (18:30). Enter at your own risk. (Editor’s note: This was recorded last week, but I—Tony—am lazy and took forever getting this posted…back soon this week with a guest.)

On February 3, 2020, it was publically announced that Bill Murphy—Blackstone’s CTO for almost a decade—would be leaving the firm at the end of March. Bill rejoins the Wavelength podcast—for a record fifth time—to discuss some of the lessons he learned while working at the private equity giant, and the next phase of his career. (2:00-47:00) At the backend of the podcast, Wei-Shen and Tony discuss Refinitiv’s plans going forward after the launch of Workspace (47:30-end).

https://www.waterstechnology.com/data-management/7692821/of-refinitiv-and-old-rivalries

3:30 Bill discusses his decision to join Cresting Wave.

7:15 For those who have fared well during the pandemic, what went right?

10:30 What are the dangers of making knee-jerk tech decisions to answer Covid-related needs?

13:30 When it comes to the buy v. build debate, are banks more wary of taking the lead on moonshot projects?

19:00 Do banks and asset managers risk falling behind if they hand too much off in the innovation space?

21:00 What interests Bill the most in genre of “innovation” and why is technical debt hindering the capital markets?

28:30 What does technical debt look like when it comes to machine learning and data analysis?

35:30 Working remotely v. working in the office—how will that dynamic change in a post-Covid world?

40:00 Blockchain?

41:30 ESG?

43:30 Quantum computing?

45:00 Deep learning?

Bill Murphy’s previous episodes:

https://www.waterstechnology.com/trading-tools/2461751/waters-wavelength-podcast-episode-22-blackstone-cto-bill-murphy

https://www.waterstechnology.com/trading-tools/3056376/waters-wavelength-podcast-episode-60-bill-murphy-blackstone-cto

https://www.waterstechnology.com/industry-issues-initiatives/3473326/waters-wavelength-podcast-episode-105-blackstones-bill-murphy-part-3

https://www.waterstechnology.com/technology/4078696/wavelength-podcast-episode-150-bill-murphy-of-blackstone-group

This week on the podcast, Wei-Shen talks with Hans Brown, head of enterprise innovation and chief information officer for corporate technology at BNY Mellon. The two delve into the topic of innovation and what that word means today compared to pre-coronavirus. Before that, Tony highlights two big stories posted on WatersTechnology.com from the past: Refinitiv’s new Workspace platform and what this rollout means for Eikon and Thomson One, and a deep-dive into Bloomberg’s Financial Instrument Global Identifier (FIGI).

The interview begins at the 5:00 min mark.

https://www.waterstechnology.com/data-management/7689651/refinitiv-begins-move-away-from-eikon-thomson-one-with-debut-of-workspace

https://www.waterstechnology.com/data-management/7690251/bloombergs-figi-a-case-of-red-light-green-light

Once again, Wei-Shen and Tony are poaching a panel from the inaugural WatersTechnology Innovation Exchange. This week, the conversation centers around data: lessons learned from the coronavirus pandemic; why banks are increasingly embracing the cloud; a look at whether or not disaster recovery will change after Covid; and our panelists wrap it up by looking into their crystal balls and predict one major trend that will develop in 2021.

Skip to the 5:00 mark if you don't want to hear about Tony's birthday weekend and just want intelligent conversation about data.

Michael Ruttledge, chief information officer and head of technology services, Citizens Bank

David Wright, chief data officer for North America, Commerzbank

Andrew Foster, chief data officer for the Americas, Deutsche Bank

This week, Wei-Shen and Tony step aside and turn the podcast over to a panel of AI experts. Last week, executives from Bank of America, Prudential, FactSet, and University College London were on a panel at the inaugural WatersTechnology Innovation Exchange. They talked about a range of topics pertaining to AI and machine learning, including issues around explainability, where banks struggle to implement AI, and the buy-v-build debate.

https://events.waterstechnology.com/innovation-exchange

Laura Hamilton, global head of treasury technology, Bank of America

Michael Natusch, global head of AI, Prudential

Emine Yilmaz, department of computer science, University College London (UCL)

Ruggero Scorcioni, principal machine learning engineer for cognitive computing, FactSet

This week on the podcast, Clare Flynn Levy, founder and CEO at Essentia Analytics, joins to talk about her shift from the buy side to going “native”. Before that, Wei-Shen and Anthony talk about the WatersTechnology Innovation Exchange, which starts on September 9. To register for the three-week virtual event, use this link: https://events.waterstechnology.com/innovation-exchange/book-now

* Clare joins the podcast and explains the reason for starting Essentia Analytics and what it means to “go native”. (5:30)

* Using analytics to trust your gut, or let you know if your gut is wrong. (15:00)

* How can understanding behavioral biases help push active managers forward? (16:30)

* Clare discusses how AI biases play into the fund management process. (32:00)

* For those on the buy side not using behavioral analytics, what’s holding them back? (38:00)