Fintech Ireland Event @ NCI 8’th June 2017
We were delighted to be the recruitment partner to last night’s Fintech Ireland event in NCI in the IFSC. We really enjoyed meeting many of the country’s growing and established firms across the Fintech ecosystem and look forward to working with many of them going forward.
On the night, there was a great panel discussion which was moderated by Peter Oakes, Fintech Ireland founder and NED of Transfermate. The panel included:
- Charles Dowd, CEO of Plynk – fresh from their major announcement of funding!
- Nikki Evans, Founder and MD of Perfect Card
- Geraldine Gibson, CEO of AQ Metrics
- Joao Reginatto, Director of Operations Europe for Circle
- Anthony Rafferty, Director of EMEA Merchant Ops and PayPal
The panel clearly spanned early stage companies to global operators but there were a lot of similar thoughts on a lot of topics that every company faces. A few of the major takeaways for us included:
- Be Brave – there was a lot of talk around incubators etc. but certainly a couple of people on the panel were very strong around getting started. It is easy enough to sit in a room and brainstorm and visualise your product, brand and strategy but there is nothing like getting real world feedback quickly.
- UX / Customer Experience is key – again, something we are passionate about ourselves but something that everyone was in complete agreement about was the end customer experience. If that is not right, if customers do not feel connected, respected and important, UX is probably falling short and is really not something that can be sustained in this increasingly competitive market.
- Technology is Critical – may seem a bit of a no brainer for a Fintech event but again just reinforces the requirement of all businesses to move with technology and use it to their advantage. In some businesses, like recruitment, we believe personal interaction is as important but integrating technology into this is crucial to success.
- Uncertainty is Certain – Brexit, the recent government changes and ongoing local, regional and global regulatory changes were all discussed. Really, the main thing for us out of all of that was the uncertainty is the only certainty. Businesses will always face short, medium and long-term challenges and must aim to understand the impact, plan and move on as much as possible.
- Ireland is well placed – We were in the NCI in the middle of the IFSC and one of the panelists made the point that within a couple of kilometers of the room were a huge range of skill-sets from financial expertise to specific technology skills – many of whom have been involved in highly entrepreneurial firms who can help grow and support growth.
Before and after the discussion, we had the chance to meet with a lot of people from a broad range of companies within the Fintech space. It was really interesting to hear about specific and quite individual challenges they face in terms of recruitment and retention and offer advice where we could.
We are always delighted to speak with new and existing clients within the Fintech and Finance space. If you are hiring or looking for advice, contact:
Laura Smyth – MD, Technology – lsmyth@toptierrecruitment.com
Paul Smyth – MD, Finance – psmyth@toptierrecruitment.com
+353 – 1 – 567 5570