New Talent, New Trends

During the past weeks, one topic of discussion has become a recurring theme in my conversations with industry contacts—the need for a new wave of talent in the data management industry.

Data experts, well-known faces in the data world with more than 20 years of market and reference data experience behind them, have expressed their belief that now is the time to blood new professionals in the data management realm.

The FISD's Financial Information Associate certification has certainly been instrumental in bringing such discussions to the forefront. The need to benchmark knowledge and calibrate to what extent a candidate may be ideal for a specific role, at a time when staffing has been overwhelmed by financial troubles in the industry, has never been more important. While some managers have expressed their expectation that potential candidates would need to take the examination, other data specialists are ahead of the game and have already taken the early adopters version of the examination themselves (see page 6).

And just as the reference data industry is looking for new talent, it is also embracing new trends. Increasing regulation and a push for openness and greater transparency have already had an impact in the data space. Vendors are adapting. Some, in fact, are considering offering the more basic data items for free, following pioneers Avox and Bloomberg (see page one), while others are exploring new deployment models across their product lines (see page 10).

Meanwhile, the data management industry is gearing up for what promises to be a busy month packed with ‘must attend' industry gatherings and conferences. Having already held seven Financial Information Summits during 2010, this month we return to London, where risk, regulatory requirements, and managing future reference data demands will be at the forefront of discussions in the Inside Reference Data stream.

And as we head into October, all eyes will be on the much-awaited Swift-organized Sibos conference that returns to Europe this year. Held in Amsterdam, it will certainly be the place to see and be seen for all corporate actions and standards professionals.

It seems there is no better time than now to jump on the reference data bandwagon.