STRATEGIC DECISIONS CRITICAL FOR STARTUPS

Interview with Rich Itri

Standardisation of data platforms around a core set of technology is critical for emerging managers, as it helps ensure business and technology alignment, increased efficiency, and improved security.

“It’s always important to make thoughtful, strategic decisions, but for emerging managers it’s even more salient. They have less financial room to make mistakes and less time to recover,” highlights Rich Itri, Senior Vice President of Professional Services, Eze Castle Integration.

He recommends startup and emerging managers recruit strong people early on, adding how the remote environment and distributed workforce has caused a shift in onboarding. However, in Itri’s view, technology is a key part of a firm’s offering when looking to attract professionals.

To help support this view, Eze Castle Integration launched its Digital Transformation Resource centre in February 2021. This was done to provide the financial industry with the actionable guidance necessary to effectively transform business operations. The company is also running a Tech Talk series in the month of February highlighting key considerations to power digital transformation, best vulnerability management practices to combat risk, and must haves for a successful cloud migration.

When considering the technology powering their business, there are several factors managers must keep in mind. “It’s important to think through your IT strategy and partner with a firm that has experience, depth, and breadth. Many startup managers leverage too many vendors early on, driving up costs and creating risk and complexity. Over time it becomes difficult to unwind and manage. The right partnership can help optimise your business, reduce risk, and enable the business to grow,” Itri advises.

Eze Castle Integration’s Digital Services allow leading organisations to accelerate business transformation, overcome obstacles and create value. By expertly blending business aligned digital strategies with a modern engineering driven design, Eze Castle helps clients capitalise on data initiatives with its data science workbench, modernise IT and applications, transform with new cloud-based applications, and optimise process automation.

In terms of client needs, Itri identifies an uptick in a need to provide services around data analysis and management as well as DevOps. Many emerging managers hire very technical analyst who need the support and frameworks used by developers.

In a whitepaper, Itri outlines: “The Covid-19 pandemic has created uncertainty and fluidity in the work environment. As a result, organisations need dynamic IT strategies that align with the business, have a vision towards the future, and focus on security. Technology plans need to be tightly aligned to the business goals and operations, with a transformational theme, rather than the traditional framework of incremental change.”

“Many organisations are coming to the realisation that the lack of vision and investment around IT Strategy has led to challenges and risks in the rush to create a robust WFH environment. Firms are now looking for a pathway to transformational change that includes strategy around security. However, they lack the resources or skillset to build, direct, and execute.” n

Rich Itri Senior Vice President of Professional Services

Rich Itri is a Senior Vice President of Professional Services (CIO Advisory) at Eze Castle Integration. Rich has over 22 years of IT executive experience, spending his entire career managing IT within the financial services industry. Prior to joining Eze Castle, Rich was Managing Director and Chief Technology Officer for PJT Partners, a boutique investment bank, Principal and Chief Information Officer for Sky Road and held Chief Information Officer positions at Arrowhawk Capital Partners and Arbalet Capital Partners. Over the years, Rich has developed and managed innovative, business aligned platforms, that drive revenue and operational efficiencies. Rich holds positions on several Advisory Boards and volunteers his time to help nonprofits leverage technology.