Welcome to the Buy-Side Technology Awards

The Past Guarantees Nothing

I remember a number of years ago—around 1993, as South Africa moved steadily towards the cusp of majority rule in the wake of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison—sitting in an audience listening to Clem Sunter, former CEO of Anglo American, one of the world’s largest mining and natural resource groups headquartered in London, discuss themes presented in his recently launched book, Pretoria Will Provide, and Other Myths.

I’ve pretty much forgotten the bulk of what he discussed that evening, but what stuck in my mind as clearly as though I heard it yesterday, was Sunter’s assertion that past success guarantees you nothing. He argued that just because Pretoria, the traditional seat of the South African Government and a bastion of the National Party, had provided for white South Africans in the past, this definitely wouldn’t be the case in the future.

Sunter argued that if you wanted to ensure a bright future, you couldn’t afford to use past experiences as a proxy for things to come. That argument may appear a bit prosaic and somewhat intuitive, but it seems we all need to be reminded of that message from time to time.

A case in point is this year’s Buy-Side Technology Awards, which, to our delight, attracted no fewer than 183 entries from 88 separate technology companies, brokers and other service providers. What was especially pleasing is that a third of this year’s categories featured new winners, which goes to show that these awards are not cut and dried by any means until the final votes are cast.

A special mention must go to this year’s judges—Paul Miller of Knadel; Sang Lee of Aite Group; Clare Vincent-Silk and Catherine Doherty, both of Investit; and Jonathan Clark of Citisoft—who provided me with their votes so that I could collate their feedback and decide our winners. Paul, Catherine and Sang have sat on our panel since the first BST Awards back in 2007.

Stewart Eisenhart, long-time deputy editor of Buy-Side Technology, proved similarly invaluable. However, this was Stewart’s final awards—his last day at Incisive Media was November 24. He will be missed.