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efficiency, reliability and relevance. Another key executive, who Kaddoura turned to in the early days of his tenure as CEO, is executive vice-president Bharat Malesha, who leads the fees and expense management (FEM) part of the business. Prior to joining the company in 2014 as a manager for fees and expense management solutions (FEMS), Malesha had over 20 years’ experience in business process management, business analysis, information architecture, and design trading and accounting platforms. Since joining the business, Malesha has continued to build on his extensive knowledge of execution cost management within the financial services industry as an information management professional.
For the past seven years, executive vice-president Linda Coffman has been a major asset to the Reference Data Utility team. In that time, she has overseen key initiatives in the listed derivative and regulatory services sectors, putting to work more than 25 years of experience in the reference data industry. That was built up partly during her time at Morgan Stanley, where she was instrumental in the creation of a fixed income security master and the onboarding of vendor data.
Marketing under the supervision of chief marketing officer Mark Roth has played a central role in the reinvention of SmartStream. Roth, who has been with the company for 13 years, draws upon more than 20 years’ experience in senior marketing roles. He plays a critical role in communicating the company’s vision and product innovation strategy to existing and potential clients.
“You can’t sit and wait for things to happen. I like to challenge people, to break things down and to think outside the box about how we can do better as a team and as a company.”
New additions to the team have been just as influential in steering the company’s fortunes, both from a technology perspective and in terms of business management. Chief financial officer Richard Bowler, who joined in 2017, has helped to get the finance, treasury and administration functions into shape, as well as setting the company’s broader financial strategy. Another 2017 recruit was Nick Smith, who is responsible for the Managed Services business. Smith has more than 25 years of experience in the financial services industry, with extensive knowledge in process management, solution development, managing risk and control and development of centres of excellence.
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Before joining SmartStream, he held a range of senior roles with leading investment banks, including Barclays, Credit Suisse and Nomura – to name a few.
Corporate cooperation “Bringing together the different skills and experience is a real challenge,” says Kaddoura. “There are some challenging discussions between the technologists and the business sector experts, but I enjoy a challenging discussion and pushing people out of their comfort zone. They are never malicious because we are all about opening up conversations in a growth-oriented manner,” Kaddoura adds. “The philosophy that is embedded in the company and its people is one of breaking down silos and allowing people to be comfortable trying out new concepts because everyone in the business knows that we are all in this together. Failure is treated as a learning experience rather than an excuse to shun people. Every idea is pursued with the desire to push the company forward. We have instilled a different mindset and we all cooperate.”
Kaddoura adds that “it takes time to change, but the results have been beautiful. Everyone here has a passion for the business, and they believe in what the company is trying to do.
“I also like to push people out of their comfort zone and embed a culture where failure is part of the learning process,” he explains. “We are not judgemental. New ideas get validated by people across the organisation. The DNA was already there to take the company to the next level. No one shies away from innovation, they are always looking for what comes next.”
First steps into a larger world That desire to innovate, to reinvent, to move the company forward into new territory was evident from Kaddoura’s first days as CEO. Trying out new concepts was high on his agenda when he took over the role, and one of his first moves was to start working on the company’s managed services concept. Six years later, managed services is one of the fastest growing parts of the business. It enables us to bring our core solutions into a cloud-enabled environment where we run the technology and deliver a scalable, agile and cost-effective range of services to our clients. Currently, the managed services portfolio includes every solution apart from cash management, which will soon join the family. The latest edition was the company’s TLM Aurora suite, its flagship digital payments reconciliation platform, was brought into the fold. As the product portfolio grows, so does the
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