In the tough environment of capital markets, people skills are often forgotten. Bank of America’s capital markets CIO talks to Dan Barnes about the virtues of trust and how his management approach has seen him voted CIO of the Year 2006.
“I don’t expect the head of derivatives trading to understand the detail of grid computing – I expect him to look at the difference it can make to his business and for him to trust me that I can make this happen,” says Vlad Torgovnik, CIO of capital markets at Bank of America.
Mr Torgovnik has been voted CIO of the Year 2006 by his peers, the CIOs of the global investment banking community, as part of The Banker’s Investment Bank of the Year Awards, and part of the reason is this emphasis on trust.
No pretensions
“Personally even I have no chance of keeping up to date with debating the very latest technologies with fresh MIT graduates, and I don’t pretend to. I do ensure I am aware of the macro trends. Some of these folks’ grip on technology is very different to that of previous generations.”
As a chief officer, Mr Torgovnik finds the real challenge is to form a team that is able to manage the latest technologies and support the business. “It starts with building the leadership team. Because the capital markets development at Bank of America – relative to the market – was fairly young when I came on board, I had a tremendous opportunity to build a new and unique team. That is hard to do when you walk into a very established and mature capital markets business,” says Mr Torgovnik.
It is also not necessarily an environment that fosters communication and co-operation, but he stresses the value of these skills within his team. “Capital markets is a hard charging environment – often the ‘softer’ people skills are forgotten,” he says.
Leader assessments
“We assess each leader on three criteria: are they the partner of choice for their business client? Are they the leader of choice for their business associates? And do they have that enterprise view, that crossover mentality? There is a strong culture of communication between businesses at Bank of America so that is a vital third pillar.”
As far as technology itself goes, Mr Torgovnik and his team have been noted as leaders in the field of distributed and grid computing and his next area of interest is that of distributed data and messaging infrastructure – here referring to the messaging that transfers data between applications.
“If you have a strong distributed computing capability and are able to cache data in a distributed fashion, the role of messaging infrastructure will change. Everything is available to you there and then. That is a really a fusion of messaging and distributed data – combined with faster processing power I think these things could change the way we do business.”
Strategy versus tactics
In the meantime, his top tip for success is in facing the greatest challenge to those in his position – that of managing strategic versus tactical gains.
“During a multi-year project cycle a lot of things happen in the business, often it has evolved or changed. If you are not careful you could be two or three years in and you are forced to cancel or materially adjust – perhaps the sponsorship is not there anymore or priorities have dramatically changed.
“The key is picking the right areas of focus and being able to sustain them through market or business changes – that is probably the most difficult thing [CIO’s] have to contend with.”
CAREER HISTORY
2006: Leads newly created global markets technology, in addition to his role as head of CTT and CIT
2004: Managing director and technology executive for corporate treasury technology (CTT) and corporate investments technology (CIT) groups
2003: Assumes responsibility for global markets trading technology
2002: Joins Bank of America as managing director and head of technology for the rates, global structured products and emerging markets businesses within the global markets group
2000: Co-founder, president and COO of Cygnifi, a spin-off of JPMorgan Chase
1992: Joins JPMorgan. Takes on a variety of roles, including global head of derivatives and exotics information technology
1989: Earns a master’s degree in computer science from Columbia University, New York
1987: Graduates from New York University with a BS in computer science and mathematics
