FINOS & Synechron Hybrid NYC Meetup March 16, 2022

Synechron was pleased to host leaders from the Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS) at a fun and informative hybrid (in-person and virtual attendance) meetup in our Synechron NYC office on 16 March 2022. Synechron is a proud Silver Corporate Member of FINOS. Attendees included dozens of FINOS executives, senior leaders, industry partners, as well as Synechron clients, all discussing and learning about broad open source industry initiatives led by this collaborative, non-profit organization.

The evening marked not only our first hybrid event of 2022, but also our first back-in-office event after a long COVID-inspired hiatus. There was plenty to celebrate and learn, surrounded by faces both familiar and new, at our beautiful 11 Times Square office, which includes our award-winning Financial Innovations Laboratory (‘FinLabs’).

With the aim of enabling the financial services industry to create and collaborate across an array of open source solutions, FINOS’ Executive Director, Gabriele (Gab) Columbro, shared with the group some of the organization’s flagship projects. One initiative of high priority is the Compliant Financial Infrastructure project which expects to result in multiple benefits including cost savings and efficiencies. Following this enlightening introduction, Synechron’s own Management Consultant and chief architect of the Probr cloud compliance tool, Eddie Knight, demonstrated the challenges of a fictional team working to create a registry of reusable infrastructure as code modules.

Attendees then had the opportunity to hear about FINOS’ endeavor with the EDM Council, a group dedicated to elevating the role of Data Management for businesses. EDMC Co-founder and COO, Mike Meriton, gave an illuminating presentation on the implementation of their Cloud Data Management Capabilities venture (CDMC). The CDMC grew out of a desire and need for a solution to the query: How can hybrid cloud environments be enabled for the benefit and strategic growth of financial institutions? With the release of 14 key controls for cloud data management capabilities, the CDMC provides a framework for the protection of sensitive data, transforming the fintech industry and is working toward expanding these controls across all cloud providers. Large companies, especially those with technology offerings, now have a project management roadmap to achieve readiness and, ultimately, CDMC certification.

Synechron has been pioneering the development of cloud and pipeline controls over the last decade. As such, we are proud to have our cloud automation engineers develop a first of its kind, holistic cloud infrastructure testing compliance tool, known as ‘Probr’, which is being deployed by FINOS to validate the CDMC framework.

Data security is of the utmost importance among organizations today. And while it may seem difficult to believe, 95% of data still lives outside of the cloud and will need to be transitioned. That means there’s an immense opportunity to drive value in the marketplace. For regulators, a major topic of concern is systemic risk, institutional risk, and so on. Much of the work that we heard about during this event will be revolutionary to the industry.

This lively event’s attendees included several key decision makers and senior leaders from the financial services industry. Ultimately, event attendees were able to glean fascinating insights about these evolving endeavors while sharing ideas, thoughts, laughs, snacks and more.

The Synechron team was thrilled to be back in the office, and to host FINOS for such a dynamic conversation! Before this joint FINOS & Synechron event closed out for the evening, we had the chance to gain some audience reactions:

“It was wonderful to return to the office for an in-person event, made especially so given our opportunity to host FINOS for the first time. Not only did we learn about significant new endeavors, but we were also able to share in meaningful conversation with inspiring minds and some of our leading clients.”
-- Ravnit Kohli, Managing Director, Head of Synechron US, Northeast Business Unit

“This event really fostered a sense of community amongst us. We all have shared concerns and priorities, especially considering how interconnected our industries have become over the topic of cloud infrastructure. The discussions at hand are pushing boundaries in a vital and relevant way.”
-- Julia Ritter, Community Manager at The Linux Foundation and FINOS

“We live in a world that relies heavily on data and the cloud, so the discussions at this event are of paramount importance to every business. It was a really great experience with well-articulated presentations on top priority topics.”
-- Alessandro Petroni, Head of Technology and Strategy FSI, Red Hat