27th Annual Virtual Securities Operations Summit

Attend the Virtual Summit

In its 27th year, our annual event will be going virtual!

The Virtual Securities Operations Summit will take place from March 29 - April 1, 2021. This year’s theme, Financial Services: The Global Reset, both reflects on the lessons we’ve learned and takes a fresh look forward at their applications and implications for the years to come. The Summit will have both General Sessions and Working Group/Forum sessions over the four day period.

Program Book

General Sessions

Security Tokenizaton: Capital Formation, Digital Twins, New Distribution Channels
Moderator: Jason Ward, Vice President of Blockchain Product Management, Fidelity Center for Applied Technology
Jerald David, President, Arca Capital Management
Mike Manning, Business Development for Securities & Funds, Symbiont
Annemarie Tierney, Founder and Principal, Liquid Advisors, Inc.
Democratization of access, potential to bring liquidity to illiquid asset classes, shorter settlement cycles… The future of financial services includes new wrappers and market infrastructure. Join us for a discussion with industry leaders who are turning advocacy into action.

Implementing DLT for Collateral Management: Challenges & Opportunities
Ciaran McGonagle, Assistant General Counsel, ISDA
Ed Ridgway, Principle, Ridgway Consulting
Industry participants are assessing opportunity to harness new technologies like smart contracts, DLT and digital assets to provide scalable, cost-efficient and more accurate collateral solutions.  This session will explore some of these opportunities and identify areas where these new technology solutions are being implemented.  This session will also identify some of the legal, regulatory and contractual challenges and will explain how ISDA is working to address these challenges within the derivatives market.

Digital Asset Forum: Security Tokenization Through the Lens of Central Securities Depositories
Moderator: Jason Ward, Vice President of Blockchain Product Management, Fidelity Center for Applied Technology
Tim Grant, CEO, Swiss Digital Exchange
Jennifer Peve, Managing Director, Business Innovation, DTCC
Blockchain technology is a catalyst driving innovation in the securities settlement industry. The Swiss Digital Exchange, SDX, is pioneering new market infrastructure for blockchain native security tokens that have the potential to settle in near real time. Simultaneously established incumbents such as the DTCC are exploring the potential to reinvent process through tokenization of securities held by the depository to drive efficiencies and shorten the settlement cycle for traditional securities. Please join us for an enlightening “fireside chat” with Tim Grant, CEO SDX, and Jennifer Peve, Managing Director of Business Innovation at DTCC to learn more about the endeavors underway at their respective organizations.

Geopolitics of ESG: Competition or Collaboration?
Kay Swinburne, Vice Chair of Financial Services, KPMG
With ESG now firmly on the global agenda, a key consideration is which standards will become universally adopted by international corporations. The EU has had a first-mover advantage having set its sustainable finance policy in motion over three years ago. China has also had its green taxonomy in place for a similar period. After a change in administration, the US is back at the table, particularly in respect to climate change. With a number of key players at the helm, will competition or collaboration determine the way forward?

Women in Financial Services: The Reflections, Realizations & Impacts of COVID-19 
Moderator: Dominica Ribeiro, Chief Marketing Officer, Breckinridge
Kathy Horgan, EVP & Chief Human Resources & Corporate Citizenship Officer, State Street Corporation
Cheryl Nash, Chief Executive Officer, Financial Supermarket, InvestCloud
Rosemary Stone, Head of Corporate Office, SWIFT
Before COVID-19, women faced unique barriers towards greater gender equality in financial services.  Women are now facing even more challenges due to the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis. Some may consider this a setback, and others may consider this an opportunity to accelerate forward, not only catching up for time lost, but moving into the new reality of work/life integration.  Reflecting over the past year, what have been the greatest challenges and what may employees and employers consider as they look ahead into the “new” normal.

The Future of Work: Reimaging How, Where, & Why We Do Work
Ben Langis, Head of the Workplace of the Future & Senior Vice President, State Street Corporation
The COVID-19 pandemic created a work environment in 2020 that nobody in the financial services industry could have contemplated; though this work environment was triggered within a few weeks like a “light switch”, its protracted status has yielded both positives and negatives, particularly when viewed over the long-term. As events have unfolded, the experience from the pandemic has given us greater insight into how to lead a workforce in a more remote environment and to reimagine how we form teams – bound more by skillsets and capabilities rather than by geographical location. As we continue to navigate through these unprecedented times from working at home almost exclusively to then returning to our offices, understanding our constraints and applying lessons learned is critical as we prepare for what is next: The Workplace of the Future.

Diversity & Inclusion During Covid
Manisha Mehrotra, Head of Diversity & Inclusion, Europe Middle East & Africa, Bloomberg
Join us for a session on how to focus on Diversity & Inclusion workplace strategies during Covid. Learn about the challenges and opportunities that exist in the context of a remote environment. During this session, you will learn about current trends and best practices to create a culture of inclusion.

Digital Assets: The Regulatory Landscape & the Evolution of Current Market Practices
Donna Parisi, Global Head of Financial Services & FinTech, Shearman & Sterling
Digital assets present myriad opportunities but are not without their fair share of challenges. Donna Parisi will share her insight into the nature of digital assets and the current state of digital asset regulation in the United States—in addition to recent developments in the trading and custody spheres—as an introduction to the various topics that will be addressed over the course of the Virtual Summit.

DTC Business Resiliency
Rachel Tyler, Executive Director, DTCC
A representative from DTC will discuss their approach to planning for extreme cyber events and the required actions in order to resume business.

Cybersecurity in a Post Pandemic World
Moderator: Ben Langis, Head of the Workplace of the Future & Senior Vice President, State Street Corporation
Chait Errande, Head of Cybersecurity & BCP, Managing Director, The TCW Group, Inc.
Jason Harrell, Executive Director, Technology Risk Management & Head of Business & Government Cybersecurity Partnership, DTCC
Nina Neer, Director, Technology & Cyber Non-Financial Risk Management, Credit Suisse
The pandemic has not just impacted markets, economies, and the health of the human race, it has also evolved and widened the cybersecurity threat landscape. Companies quickly responded to the global pandemic by moving to a largely work-from-home model. This change has created many new
dynamics including stressed IT infrastructures and different threat vectors for bad actors and nation states. As we evolve to a future model of working, utilizing more flexible and hybrid office working models, we must address those risks from a technology and cybersecurity perspective. This panel
intends to explore the learnings from the pandemic and how those lessons learned have informed better strategies and tactics in an ever-changing cybersecurity environment.

Virtual Summit Features Include:

• Live Streamed General Sessions
• Interactive Live Streamed Working Group and Forum sessions
• Networking Lounges
• Live Attendee Chat
• 1:1 Attendee Video Networking
• Virtual Exhibit Booths
• Interactive Networking Happy Hours
• Other fun and special offerings are being developed