Game Changers issue #3

BEING MACHIAVELLI IN THE WORK PLACE?

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Is it a method to adopt or drop in the 21st Century

Interview with Andrew Saks Mcleod

TIMUR TALKS!

NORD STAR Interview with Marina Bodnick

Interview with Timur Latypoff

The Man with the Golden Touch Interview with James Elliott

VOLUME 1 | ISSUE #3

DIRECTORY The Nord Star

3-4

Interview with Marina Bodnar

Read All About It

5-6

Interview with Andrew Saks Mcleod

Timur Talks

8-11

Interview with Timur Latypoff

Machiavelli in the Workplace

12-13

Article by Paul Orford

The Man with the Golden Touch Interview with James Elliott

15-18

The Nord Star Interview with Marina Bodnar

Paul Orford To start off, can you tell us a few words about yourself?

Marina Bodnar I started my professional career in the banking sector, where I worked for a number of years.

Three years ago I focused on the Forex industry. This is one of the fastest growing segments in the financial markets, and I am sure that working in this sphere offers great prospects.

Paul Orford And you are currently the CEO of NFX Capital Cyprus Ltd? Marina Bodnar Yes, I took this post a little over a year ago.

guidance by the European Supervisory Authority (ESMA) as expressed by the regulator (CySEC) of the Cyprus-based entity, which results in continuous improvement of our already rigorous standards and procedures.

This applies not only to the terms of trading and service promotion methods, but also to the transparency of trade information, risk management, safety of customer funds, and many other factors that determine a broker's work.

Paul Orford Tell me, what exactly brought you to this company?

Marina Bodnar Its high reliability, its credibility and the professionalism of its staff. NFX Capital CY is part of the NordFX group which is very well-known in the brokerage market. Ever since 2008, the companies under this brand have been offering a complete range of services for trading in the Forex market to individuals and legal entities in nearly 100 countries around the world.

Paul Orford Is the list of NordFX awards as impressive as its history then?

Marina Bodnar I will not call ourselves some sort of awards hunters, but I will not hide the fact that the high assessment of our work by both our customers and the professional community is a cause for pride.

We have been active for nearly a decade, and in that time the NordFX group has been awarded nearly 30 prestigious international and national awards and honors. Of course, it makes no sense to list all of them, except to say that based on the results of a voting in the framework of The Forex Awards, NordFX has been named Most Reliable Broker 2016.

MARINA BODNAR Managing Director

Paul Orford As a company registered in Cyprus, are you planning to expand your presence here?

Marina Bodnar Certainly. We are now in the process of obtaining an additional license and are planning a major expansion of the scope of our operations in the coming months. This, in turn, will inevitably increase the company's workforce.

Paul Orford What exactly is the role that you play in the company?

Marina Bodnar As CEO of NFX Capital Cyprus, I am primarily responsible for the smooth operation of the company and for its development.

Paul Orford What do you think makes you different from the competition?

Marina Bodnar There is a saying, "Better less, but better." We do not seek to extend the list of offered investment products and services endlessly; our focus is exclusively on currency trading in the Forex market.

This approach allows us to avoid stretching our strengths too thinly and to concentrate on continuously improving the quality of our work in this segment.

Of course, everything must be done in the context of a strict regulatory environment that is constantly changing with the aim of protecting the interests of clients as best as possible. Most of the changes relate to the

Customers are at the heart of our philosophy, and I am confident that they appreciate our efforts. We, on our part, are doing and will be doing everything to justify the trust that they place in the NordFX brand.

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Read All About It! Visionary Finance Feeds CEO and FX media magnate Andrew Saks McLeod, joined me for a couple of cool drinks as I probe him on what has made him a game changer.

As the CEO of the leading news provider for institutional trading, Andrew Saks McLeod is without doubt the leading name within the delivery of industry news. Along with being the go to man for a breaking story, Andrew is also been known to dictate the narrative highlighted by his crusade against the Binary Option industry and is a frequent face on the FX circuit.

Paul Orford I have known you for a long time now, and one thing that you have always came across to me as was headstrong, or what others I guess would call focused on your end goal. I have found that a lot of people have a great idea in this industry, but never follow through. With Finance Feeds it is fair to say that you have delivered.

Andrew Saks McLeod I personally believe that I was

radically different to my peers in that I had around 25 years’ experience within the industry, so I had a massive background knowledge on the area.

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I personally believe that I was radically different to my peers

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What I did find peculiar other brands employed people who were journalists first, then industry people second so there was a market segment that we could dominate.

Although they could learn about the various products, they never had hands on experience with them.

Paul Orford When you held previous roles, I felt that you were taking each project in the right direction.

Your competition was rather more interested in diluting their product with having adverts from Binary products. For me, you cannot do both as you are either embracing retail and binary, or institutional.

Andrew Saks McLeod As one of the original FX journalists, back then there was no segmentation as Binary options was insignificant. Maybe only a few low level market participants. So there was not the fog created by all of this.

We prided ourselves on conducting high quality research and compiling industry reports. This helped 05

This way, correct and detailed research that benefits the entire industry can be conducted and distributed for the greater good of advancing the cause of every segment globally. Effectively, this allows us to produce news and research that can be used by industry executives to help form key business decisions.

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My career has allowed me to forge relationships with senior executives from across the industry

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the said institution move from a 3 person firm, giving out invaluable industry based intelligence which became industry orthodoxy. In the projects that followed after this I wanted to bring in more quality based journalism which involved developing web based TV shows, along with many other mediums.

Paul Orford So it is fair to say that this guided you in developing your ethos for Finance Feeds.

Andrew Saks McLeod Yes, in August 2015 myself and Noam (Stiekema) formulated the plan and released Finance Feeds. We developed the only interactive news and research source for the online trading industry.

Because of our close relationships with key professionals, we could report closely from within the industry. We work closely from within platform vendors, electronic brokerages etc to provide accurate research and news that helps drive your business forward.

I believe that his is still the only interactive news source out there, as others could be viewed as just processing press releases. With Finance Feeds we bring the thoughts and activities of the global leaders of the industry, whether you are institutional or retail.

Paul Orford You are quite strict in who you accept as an advertising partner within your publication.

In an industry obsessed with revenue, how did you sell to your business partners that you were only looking for a specific segment of the industry?

Andrew Saks McLeod As a prominent news, research and interactive information entity for the global electronic trading industry, it is very important to align with the upper level of senior executives that represent and operate the highest quality companies.

My career has allowed me to forge relationships with senior executives from across the industry and therefore I view my responsibility as a remit to assist in forming key business deals between top companies and provide value for the audience. This was received very well from the outset by our key partners, many of whom I have a very longstanding professional relationship with.

Paul Orford Over the years we have discussed the relevance (or lack of) of the industry expo. My thoughts have always been that to meet new clients coming to your stand are very low. However, it is great to meet with existing relationships that you do have. What are your thoughts?

Andrew Saks McLeod Conferences and expos are vital, but the method by which they are conducted is even more vital. The generic aspect must give way to specialized, industry sector-specific networking and interaction. This is not the gaming or affiliate marketing business, and bears absolutely no resemblance to it.

Therefore the right people to conduct events in this business are those who understand the requirements of the large institutions that built this entire electronic trading business.

This means good quality networking among relevant partners in classy, exclusive surroundings and no razzmatazz. The conservative and navy-suited nature of the technological and financial components of this business are vital considerations when making events, and therefore those doing so need to have grown up in that particular environment.

Paul Orford As anyone who has been lucky enough of to attend one of your events. Any tips for networkers?

Andrew Saks McLeod Advice to networkers should be never to fall for gimmicky self-promoting meetups or low-grade supposedly cure-all marketing techniques.

Networking should be without sales pitches, and should be facilitated by those who understand the exact requirements on a granular level of the firms and executives that need to reach their objectives.

06

TIMUR TALKS! As we all know the FX technology world is incredibly competitive with all participants looking for an edge over each other.

We met with the CEO of Takeprofit Technology, Timur Latypoff, to discuss his career and how his company has an edge over their competitors.

TIMUR LATYPOFF Managing Director

Paul Orford Hi Timur, thanks for taking the time to speak with Game Changers magazine. I think it is best to start by giving the readers a background about yourself.

Timur Latypoff With regards to my academic background, I studied as a software developer in St Petersburg, Russia. On a professional level my first entry into the FX market per se was via the well-known solution provider Tools4brokers.

When I joined them it was only a fledgling company, and I am proud to say that I worked as one of the original team to make it into one of the most recognizable names in this area. Where I helped design and develop the product, gave me an edge in selling it as I had a thorough understanding of every functionality. Having been there at every stage gave me what I believe to be a superior understanding of the product, and its advantages to the end user.

I like to think that I played a key role in developing the department and its structures, ultimately leading to my final role as director of operations. On reflection, it was an interesting time for me as I saw it grow from what some may deem to be a start-up into a mature company.

Paul Orford Can you give me some background on Takeprofit Technology.

Timur Latypoff Upon leaving Tools4Brokers, I took a year out to work as a consultant where it gave me time to think about how I could develop a product, which I believe offered true value to the client. Having found partners who believed in my vision we started Takeprofit Technology.

My driving force was that I wanted to have my own product line and having a vision of what it should be and how to present this. I started literally from zero, as I did not believe in jeopardizing my relationship with my previous employ-

er. Like any start-up it was challenging, however having a great team around me really helped us develop at a fast and sustainable level.

Paul Orford As we know the market is very competitive. What separates you from your competitors?

Timur Latypoff I think that one of the major differences is that we do not license our products. The client purchases the package for a one off fee. We feel that the end user knows the price and cost to their business. That is not to say that our job ends there. All clients receive full support for the lifetime of being a client.

We took a very proactive approach which we believe offers the client a more rounded experience.

I believe that one thing we are particularly successful in is the simplicity of our product.

That is not to say that it is basic and lacking in functions. We found in our research that complexity can lead to extra risk for the company using such a product.

Another aim of ours would be to say that we like them to be time efficient and are easy for the client to learn how to use.

Paul Orford In my opinion the product that put you on the map was Klondike. Can you give us an insight into this.

Timur Latypoff We designed it with simplicity in mind. That’s not to say that the end user is losing out on performance or anything related to that. We wanted to offer a straight forward solution. The developers looked at this from the client’s perspective as opposed to the developer’s side. As a developer I found that we can get lost, 09

as we sometimes do not think like an end user.

This can be the downfall of some great products which a developer can use, but can confuse a client.

Also I would like to think that we have designed plug-ins that are tremendously robust and can detect errors, so our support team know about them straight away. We all know that when things go wrong for brokerages it can be very expensive.

Our bridge is constantly monitoring the server to make sure that everything is ok, as I believe we are the most customer centric in our area of expertise.

This may sound peculiar, when we were developing Klondike we had in mind at all times how we were going to support it. From my experience, a product is often designed and the support is following this. We took a very proactive approach which we believe offers the client a more rounded experience.

TIMUR LATYPOFF Managing Director

One thing I did learn was that support is key and can set you apart from your peers. We offer a full support team that can handle all the technical details. My aim for this was to let the client

know that they are not alone when issues arise. I think we have done remarkably well within this area.

Paul Orford Along with Klondike you developed a number of other products. Can you elaborate on the EasyMAM. Timur Latypoff Again this was designed not only for being easy to use, but also making sure that it runs incredibly smoothly. Compared to others in its field, it has low impact on the server so sets itself apart from others.

We found that most crashes occur due to having third-party MAM plug-ins. Our servers MAM service sits separate from the server, and calculates the logic separately. This does not affect the server performance, and all calculations made on it will be correct.

Paul Orford As I am always looking for differences between companies I saw that you do not charge a license fee. Why is this?

Timur Latypoff We charge a one-time fee for our products which many saw as a disadvantage.

However, I believe it gives us an advantage because it gives them less of an incentive to switch or compare prices with our competitors.

We offer full support of our products once it is purchased, so we believe it is great value for money. By also offering the brokerage in question the knowledge that there are no other fees to pay gives them great scope to know what the bottom line is of their current and future business.

Paul Orford With 2016 drawing to an end, what’s planned for 2017?

Timur Latypoff We do have a number of plans lined up which are in the early stages so it is hard for me to elaborate. The best thing to say is to keep watching as we will have more news coming soon!

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The name Machiavelli conjures up images of chicanery and gross acts of skullduggery, and has become synonymous with everything that is sly about human behavior. With many viewing the day-to-day politics of the working environment to be the same as in the royal court of the Borgia, can we learn anything from him?

The first guideline to “realpolitik” To understand more about what many view as an often misrepresented philosophical thinker, we need to understand a little more about the context in which he lived in.

Can Machiavelli teach us anything about the workplace?

Participants within modern organizations follow to a large extent the rules outlined by Machiavelli without having ever read his text, argues AMB Prime’s Paul Orford.

Guest editorial by Paul Orford, Head of Institutional Sales at AMB Prime featured on Finace Feeds on March 7 2017

Niccolo Machiavelli was born in 1469 and forged a career as a Florentine political diplomat, whose most famous treatise was ‘The Prince’. If you are not aware, the book is his guide on how a leader should gain and maintain power when faced with the many dilemmas of ruling. Indeed many saw this as the first guideline to what is known as ‘realpolitik’.

The politics of the city states could resemble that of the “Game of Thrones” where an ally could be your enemy, and you enemy could become your ally in an incredibly fluid fashion, so in essence this was written for the leaders of the era to keep a watchful eye on competing influences.

It is possible to apply his work by supplanting the prince for the CEO and instead of the kingdom – use a brokerage. By using some of his more familiar observations we can see if this is applicable in the modern era.

To be feared or loved?

In chapter 17 of the treatise, Machiavelli outlines the argument of whether it is better to be feared rather than loved when conducting the affairs of state. Although he does argue that it is great to have the masses love you it is easier to rule them if they fear you.

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Is this possible for the modern CEO to run their business in this fashion? As we have all probably worked with the varying spectrum of personality types within the industry, would a charismatic knowledgeable leader produce better results than one who continuously threatens impending doom on your career.

Ultimately if you do find yourself in this predicament then you are going to look for an alternate source of income and leave.

Working with a leader who can help you grow and learn can sometimes trump financially larger offers from your competitors. If given the choice between working with an uninformed luddite who protects his own ends, and holding a role where you can grow professionally, statistically the latter will be taken.

the women of his subjects will make him hated”. As we can all appreciate HR practices have moved on since this period, and it is no longer de rigueur for a leader of an organization to take your workers property and their loved ones. He goes further in describing how to remedy the challenge of not becoming hated by your subjects by using the power of delegation.

With this he is not outlining who should carry out the minor and mundane tasks, he argues that your number two should be the one who passes on the bad news so the populace hold a grudge against the person carrying out the order.

Machiavelli score: NO

Are we all fickle liars?

“It can be said of men that they are fickle liars and deceivers they shun danger and are greedy for profit. Therefore it is necessary for a leader to learn how not to be good.” – Niccolo Machiavelli.

In Chapter 18, Machiavelli discusses whether a prince needs to keep their word. He argues that experience had shown that rulers who have little regard for their word go on to achieve great things.

Moreover, he argues this from a position of nobody else keeps their word, so why should you be any different.

If we use this doctrine in the modern workplace the machinery of modern relationships would break down incredibly fast. Although many claim that it is common occurrence that working for a leader who does not keep their word to lead to inefficiencies, but could this really be attributed to them, being indecisive and trying to please all. (see previous section.)

Furthermore, all popular decisions and news that is passed out must be given by the Prince so it reflects well on them. I think it is fair to assume that this practice is still a very popular choice today, with the modern CEO often bathing in the glory and allowing others to offer impending doom laden news to their underlings.

Machiavelli Score: YES And now…

Further to this, in the field that we operate in which strives to be as transparent as possible, losing the trust of your workforce can result in a severe downturn in your results and the death knell of your companies hard fought reputation.

A thorough reading of Machiavelli’s work can give useful guidance in how to follow one particular style in leadership.

To argue whether it has any longevity in a successful organization is a separate issue.

Machiavelli score: NO

What is intriguing is the actions and participants within modern organizations still follow to a large extent the rules which he noted without having ever read his text. Moreover, I am sure he would have been very pleased to observe the relevance of his work in the 21st century work environment.

How to avoid hatred Finally in Chapter 19, Machiavelli argues “a prince must avoid becoming hated or despised. Taking the property or

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The Man with the Golden Touch Paul Orford meets Julian Elliott for lunch at the Londa Hotel Limassol Cyprus. Having known Julian for quite some time, I thought it would be great to congratulate him on receiving his MBA, and to get an insight regarding his views on the industry, and the exciting future of the world renowned Gold-I technology.

Paul Orford I remember a lovely quote that Tom (Higgins Gold-I CEO) said regarding you and outlining your work, in essence he viewed you as a key asset to the company, and playing a significant role in the growth of Gold-i.

That must give you a huge amount of confidence to get the backing from the boss like that.

Julian Elliott I was delighted to have been promoted to operations director, as the company has made significant progress over the last five years. In the next few years I am really looking forward to the challenge and opportunities that lay ahead.

Paul Orford Sounds great that you are ready to embrace the challenge. As you know, one of my bugbears is bad service, and I have on a number of occasions discussed this with you regarding other vendors. What I like about your service is that you do reply to people and not hide behind an email. There is nothing worse than the black void of the lack of response from a support team when I am a client and I need an issue resolved.

Julian Elliott One of the fundamentals that Tom based the business on was good service. My support team has not been asked to do the standard type of response. We found that from drawing on our own experience, that if you can pick up the phone and say we are figuring it out goes along way with a client.

Paul Orford I can 100% concur with that. In this industry we all understand that there will be technical issues. I think that it is key in how you deal with them, as can dictate your future relationship with the client, and perhaps your future busi ness. In my humble opinion, internationally British products are viewed as a sign of high quality. Do you believe that Gold-I are internationally viewed as this?

Julian Elliott Yes very much so.

When we started developing third party products for the MT4 platform, the market was still in its infancy. As a consequence the variety and quality of products and applications available to brokers was very poor. We saw this as an opportunity to establish a reputation for making robust, reliable software that Brokers can rely on.

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The market has since matured and the industry is now much more competitive and more complex. However, we dedicate a substantial percentage of our time conducting research and development, including a rigorous internal QA process, o that we can deliver high quality products that Brokers need to run their business profitably.

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We have a really exciting product roadmap ahead

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As an example, we spent 12 months on our MAM Pro allocation tool, which we developed by investigating and analysing client feedback. The Gold-i MAM Pro offers brokers more flexibility and functionality than ever before, and is most importantly, even more resilient to misuse. We are now starting to develop our MAM offering for MT5, which will require a whole new set of algorithms and logic based on the difference between the two platforms.

Software Development is just one aspect however. We also became quickly aware in the early days, that there was very little technical exper-

tise in this space, which presented an opportunity to offer a support service for Brokers. Reacting quickly to any production issue is our number one priority. This includes the capability to handle our clients’ by having a sound understanding of their setup.

Paul Orford With more competition and innovation in the market, is it becoming more difficult to get your voice heard?

Julian Elliott We have always distinguished ourselves from our competitors through our innovative solutions and functionality. We developed a host of complex, innovative features in our bridging technology, such as our advanced price throttling algorithm, spreading, percentage covering, slippage control and exposure monitoring. We developed Matrix 1.0 to allow an MT4 brokerage to offer out their own liquidity via a FIX API and have now moved onto our multi-phase project – the Matrix 2.0 liquidity management system. Matrix 2.0 offers multiple routing rules, providing brokerages with options to suit their requirements and a primary /secondary offering, providing brokers a seamless failover, should they encounter 17

an outage with their LP. These are excellent examples of our innovative capability, and with the launch of our Matrix 2.0, we can evolve the way the retail landscape operates once again. This brings its own challenge as we open ourselves to a myriad of competing products and technologies, from both the retail and institutional sectors. However this is the sort of challenge we thrive on. It is why we do what we do, because we enjoy innovating, finding solutions and pushing the boundaries to see what we can achieve.

From a Support perspective, we have strengthened our service further by opening our office in Shanghai. This helps us provide additional round-the-clock support to our ever-growing client base across the world. We now have the ability to attract high calibre professionals, for example the recent appointment of ex-Fidessa executive, Matthew Smith, as our new Head of Support in our UK office.

Paul Orford What are the future plans of Gold-i?

Julian Elliott After significant investment in our Matrix 2.0 technology, we can now provide a truly

impressive liquidity management solution. We have a really exciting product roadmap ahead, not just for Matrix but our full complement of products including our Business Intelligence software, Visual Edge.

With these developments, we are now able to target both the retail and institutional markets using a variety of platforms and technologies.

JAMES ELLIOTT Managing Director

Our Shanghai office has been open for almost a year now and has proved well worth the investment.

We now have a dedicated Sales Agent for mainland China and have just appointed a Head of Sales for the APAC region. We are always looking at new markets, regions and territories and consequently, new office locations to follow suit. We have an exciting few years ahead of us and I look forward to seeing what opportu18

The Journal for Industry Leaders

MARCH 2017