As a fast-moving and innovative FinTech business, it’s perhaps no surprise to learn that CMC Markets is in a constant state of change. Whether we’re working to meet changing client demands, accommodating new infrastructure requirements or accounting for evolving regulatory needs, as a company we typically have between 60 and 80 individual change projects underway at any one time.
My role as Head of Business Change means that I have the responsibility for ensuring IT projects are appropriately managed as they pass across the business. These activities will often impact multiple business areas so there’s a need to ensure relevant approvals are sought, that projects are prioritised appropriately and timely updates are given. Ultimately, I’m negotiating to ensure projects always derive the maximum benefit within the real world constraints of an operation that operates around the clock. I have the support of a team of five project managers to assist with this, some of whom cover defined areas of the business, whilst others have a wider remit, but we’re all working towards that singular goal of ensuring the technical operation runs smoothly for all stakeholders.
Sometimes these projects can be relatively small, but more often it’s a whole series of individual challenges that collectively make up part of a bigger project that we’re needing to address. To give an example, the newly launched SpotFX offering for our institutional customers made for a significant programme of work, which included the creation of a brand new product suite whilst also requiring pervasive change to be made across our wider infrastructure, in order to drive down latency. That involved working with numerous departments internally, as well as a host of external agencies and suppliers such as Quod Financial and the providers of the LD4 data centre. The collective efforts here enabled us to obtain the required efficiency gains and ultimately become a provider of tier one liquidity in our own right.
If there’s one aspect of the job at CMC Markets that stands out, I’d say it’s the fact that the company is of a size that I’m able to work on a wide range of projects, whilst getting to see each of them through the whole lifecycle from incubation to completion. Combining this with the fact we’re using our own internal resources for the vast majority of our product development means we’re not left cutting corners when it comes to delivery.
