On the inaugural Fintech Awards South West at Aerospace Bristol final 12 months, Navos Applied sciences’ CEO David Davies was named Fintech Chief of the Yr.

On this Q&A, Matt Hyde, managing director at Fintech Awards South West, chats to Davies, the previous chief info Officer of FTSE100 Hargreaves Lansdown, about Navos’s journey, dedication to innovation, information safety and the significance of strategic collaborations.

David, are you able to present an summary of Navos Applied sciences and your providing?

Navos was based in 2020. The expertise enterprise was born out of frustration after I was unable to discover a firm that would present actual world expertise of successfully delivering digital options for monetary providers corporations. This resulted in inefficiencies and delays given the regulatory panorama, however an idea for an thrilling new enterprise.

Navos, a mix of two historic Greek phrases that means to navigate tough waters and it appeared apt as we’re assembly the wants of an business the place delivering digital change is usually offered with difficult headwinds.

Since inception, the enterprise has opened two places of work in Bristol, and continues to develop at tempo.  Because the agency doesn’t promote merchandise, however helps ship options, whether or not creating software program programs from scratch, or integrating with the world’s most innovate suppliers, Navos is ideally positioned to collaborate in a consumer centred method and has constructed a observe file of delivering.  As a ‘one cease store’ for expertise, digital and cyber options, it’s commonplace for our purchasers to have the ability to consolidate a number of IT provider contracts into one, subsequently lowering prices and bettering service.

With over 150 years of wealth administration expertise in expertise, aligned with a three-pillared method of offering advisory, execution and help providers, we discover ourselves in a novel place aligned with a realistic method.

Because of the method of with the ability to not solely strategically help companies of all sizes, however help their evolution, by way of a completely UK based mostly workforce, there’s hardly ever a situation we aren’t capable of sort out.  One thing that excites every one in all us right here at Navos!

How does Navos Applied sciences foster a tradition of innovation throughout the firm?

Inside the sector there are broad vary of choices, and fintech is seen as one of the vital progressive areas of monetary providers for the time being, with the likes of synthetic intelligence being simply one of many matters of curiosity.

We not solely stay and breathe fintech, we personal it, as in 2022 Navos efficiently acquired fintech.co.uk and built-in it into the group. This now gives a brilliant thrilling basis for people, corporations, or buyers, to pitch concepts and ideas to a gaggle of likeminded technologists and skilled monetary providers leaders, to get issues shifting – whether or not by way of funding, grant help, or a mix of them each.

Internally we recurrently run Hackathon’s (usually supported by copious quantities of pizza) to problem our personal pondering and develop our personal concepts.  The progressive pondering additionally stretches exterior the workplace with common social occasions, the latest with us embarking on a ‘locked in a room’ problem – which was fiercely aggressive!

You’ll recurrently see Navos at most fintech or business conferences, whether or not presenting or attending to showcase our proposition.  Modern approaches that mix business firsts comparable to really hybrid options, utilizing better of breed expertise distributors, and a customized consumer expertise for instance, are only one instance of our programme deliveries this 12 months.

Navos is working with world platforms, offering providers to retail buyers and on a world scale.  There has additionally been an enormous improve within the variety of monetary advisory corporations trying to evolve their present propositions with a view to be a step forward.  An everyday piece of suggestions we obtain is such traction to ship within the business has been nigh on inconceivable till we got here lengthy – additional supporting the hole out there I recognized.  There are a selection of vastly thrilling initiatives underway for the time being which we’re unable to stipulate in an excessive amount of element nonetheless we are able to say that there new merchandise on the horizon that may introduce efficiencies to the advisory sector and established corporations that may discover them having the aggressive edge.  So watch this house!

How does Navos Applied sciences be sure that its services or products prioritise the safety of consumer information and preserve compliance with related rules?

It’s an incredible query and one we’re on the centre of most weeks.  Cyber Safety is frequently evolving challenge for each enterprise, regardless of measurement, and I’m an enormous advocate of corporations having a pro-active method.  My view is that it a lot better for IT groups (or their expertise companions) to seek out points on their very own watch, and resolve them, earlier than the criminals do.  Sadly it’s common to listen to responses comparable to ‘it’s OK we’re all lined’, ‘it received’t occur to us’, or ‘we don’t have the funds to check’.

Nonetheless, I can guarantee you that budgets quickly change into accessible reactively. Much more worryingly is that companies have already been compromised, they usually have been unaware till we instructed them. So no, you’re ‘not all lined’, and it recurrently prices lower than some think about to stay on high of what’s more likely to be probably the most distinguished danger in any enterprise. Solely this 12 months quite a few excessive profile companies have been hit with massive ransomware assaults, rendering them offline for days or perhaps weeks, so it begs the query, may your corporation afford to be attacked, and if not – what are you doing about it?

In actuality, as I’ve had the privilege to take a seat on each side of the fence, from serving to run a FTSE100 enterprise, to now supporting others to run theirs, I can usually share my views on what has stored me awake at evening.  Insights which can be hardly ever accessible however predominantly, these are cyber associated, and relaxation assured cyber criminals don’t need to go cap in hand to a CFO, or take months to approve a PO, so the adversary recurrently has a bonus.

Knowledge privateness dovetails into this matter and with the prominence of digital options now in every of our telephones, tablets, or laptops, it solely takes a tiny slip to have profound results. GDPR for instance remains to be very a lot in play however is recurrently forgotten.  To not point out the regulatory pressures of those non-functional elements of digital programmes, that are simply as necessary as a slick consumer journey – just for some, and never whenever.

Collaboration usually results in new concepts and options – are there any notable partnerships or collaborations that Navos Applied sciences has engaged in not too long ago? 

I couldn’t agree extra, and given our place as an agnostic options supplier, we pleasure ourselves in partnering with the most effective expertise corporations – on a world scale. Our proposition generally incorporates a number of companions coming collectively for the primary time to profit purchasers, with Navos being the enabler, and system integrator. New concepts and ideas are mentioned recurrently and the artwork of the potential is now within the attain of most provided that options at the moment are being ‘born within the Cloud’ leading to integration potentialities hardly ever seen earlier than, along with an thrilling eco-system of buyers who see the probabilities of disruption by way of digital.

Whereas I’d like to let you know extra about a few of our latest initiatives, my lips are sealed till the merchandise launch!

In the end, I really feel that the wealth administration and monetary recommendation sector is the place banking was 10 years in the past. Challenger corporations, whether or not by way of consolidation, or just realising the chance are embarking on really progressive initiatives – however for the primary time I’ve ever identified, these monetary providers corporations are saying, ‘If we are able to’t discover it, we’ll construct it’.  I do know myself, my household and buddies, will surely do extra with their monetary advisor if the expertise was higher, a subject of normal dialogue within the Navos workplace!

How does Navos Applied sciences keep up-to-date with rising applied sciences and traits?

We’re lucky that our workforce consists of among the most proficient engineers, architects and technicians accessible and which means that staying abreast of modifications throughout the sector is second nature to them. Being a nimble enterprise centered on delivering, we don’t weigh ourselves down with forms or irrelevant conferences and writing studies – while others are doing these items, the Navos workforce is writing code, partaking in workshops and launching new merchandise. Plenty of us have labored in each environments and I can say for certain which one all of us desire to be in. This pragmatic method recurrently sees us utilizing rising applied sciences and ideas, and as alluded to earlier, we carry these to life by way of Hackathons – so we’re actually progressive in our make-up.

Generally, the Navos workforce all perceive the business by which we’re supporting, which makes an enormous distinction on how we add worth, but in addition effectivity to initiatives. We additionally be sure that any new improvements are shared throughout the workforce to profit purchasers, if we consider it would help a greater final result. Given our background, Navos has change into the primary port of name for the monetary providers sector that means that we’re listening to from corporations first hand. This enables us to remain forward of different corporations that may suppose they’re performing the same function or certainly components of the function which, I recognize, is a daring, however true assertion.

We at the moment are the ‘go to’ for service suppliers, platforms and startups, trying to perceive whether or not their services and products can succeed or what modifications they may must make, with a view to attraction to corporations they’re focusing on.

What steps does Navos Applied sciences take to advertise variety inside its workforce and guarantee an inclusive atmosphere?

As somebody who lives and breathes variety and inclusion, that is an instrumental a part of each how I work, and each facet of the enterprise. Think about somebody sat round a FTSE100 boardroom desk with no college diploma and maybe the odd tattoo – effectively, that was me in a earlier life.

D&I are spoken about however are they actually a part of a corporations tradition? Like actually? At Navos it’s – regardless of beliefs, appears, or background, we embrace individuality, in reality, we encourage it. That is our enterprise and it isn’t run by a library of HR insurance policies or procedures, however by way of actual life experiences, and permitting folks to be the most effective model of themselves, in a trusted atmosphere.

I take into account myself extraordinarily lucky to have a various workforce round me and that is likely one of the greatest bits about Navos. Range, if accomplished proper, breeds alternative ways of pondering, working, and delivering, and with a tradition which means I sit alongside the workforce in each sense, I’m recurrently challenged on concepts, which I like.

We’re persevering with to evolve in each method, and it will all the time be the case; to make sure that by recruiting the most effective folks, Navos will go from power to power.