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> Continued from Page 25From August 2006 through May 2008, she served as managing director of North American operations for Morgan Stanley Investment Management. From 2000 until 2006, she served as global co-director of fixed income and derivatives technology at AllianceBernstein. Prior to that, she was managing director of global fixed income technology at Cantor Fitzgerald; chief technology officer and chief risk officer at Mizuho Capital Markets; and vice president of derivatives technology at Lehman Brothers.She began her career at Morgan Stanley in 1985, working within both the technology and controllers departments supporting the derivatives product business.She pursues “collaborative work within the financial sector to advance operational efficiencies, risk mitigation, and regulatory effectiveness,” according to her bio, and serves on the boards of the DTCC, Omgeo and CUSIP, as well as on steering committees at the International Swaps and Derivatives Association and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.What follows is an illuminating conversation with Meyn.Q&A: ‘A Big Year’ for Cynthia MeynQ: Hi. Is it all right if I call you Cynthia, or would you prefer something more formal?A: [chuckles] Cynthia’s formal enough.Q: This award “honors an executive-level individual who has advanced the cause of financial technology innovation from the business side.” So, how did you do that in 2013?A: It’s a continuous process, but I would say the highlights of 2013 would be three or four strategic areas where I’ve had the good fortune to be able to exhibit leadership [by] championing systemic risk mitigation through technological advancements.The first area would be endorsing the shorter settlement cycle in Europe and in the United States for cash-settled securities. With respect to Europe, we worked very hard to improve matching technology to include the pace of settlement and the place of safekeeping to then enable T+0 matching of trades at the allocation level. And those matching messages are inclusive of the pace of settlement and the place of safekeeping in Europe. This is a key step enabling the shorter settlement cycle [beginning] in October 2014.The second area where I believe I’ve been influential has been in the space of collateral management. I’ve worked hard with many people in the industry to coalesce toward a vision of electronic matching of collateral inbound and outbound calls, electronic instruction of collateral movements to custodians, and electronic messaging ... in the tri-party collateral space.And lastly, we championed the use of electronic, digitized settlement instructions for the movement of collateral. And we have a vision of electronically agreeing collateral, instructing collateral and ultimately net settling collateral at the DTCC on a same-day basis, whereas previously it took up to a week to move collateral.Q: Is that vision reality?A: That vision is about five years through a 10-year game plan, but in 2013 we finally achieved buy-side and sell-side electronic agreeing of collateral. And we also achieved funding and building of margin transit at the DTCC for the settlement aspect. The vision is [that] one day we won’t have any fails in collateral, and we’ll get there now.The third area where I think I’ve been influential with others pertains to Dodd-Frank and EMIR regulatory reporting through technological advancement.In many places in the world, the buy side and the sell side have come together on behalf of the end investor and the end client to provide transparency to regulators of derivative positions, with the goal of identifying and mitigating systemic risk. Those initiatives went live in late 2012 in the form of the Legal Entity Identifier and in the form of multiple trade repositories. At some point, we hope to make it possible for regulators to help the end investor avoid another potential financial crisis.So, in summary, it was a big year for me and a big year for the industry because we were able to realize some of the fruits of our labors, in terms of leveraging technology to reduce systemic risk in many asset classes across the globe.Q: Will technology and regulation ever catch up with the global aspect of the financial services business? Is what you’re working toward the day when everyone will be playing on an equal technological field and all the regulations will be in accord?A: We work for the protection of the end investor. We work to 27 restore the faith of the end investor in the security and safetyof their investments. To that end, we work to use technologyto improve data security, improve regulatory transparency, improve risk-adjusted return, and to mitigate systemicrisk that could do harm to clients. It’s beneficial if regulators cooperate.It could also be beneficial if different regulators in different jurisdictions have different means of measuring. It does in some ways make the industry stronger to have different opinions in different regulatory bodies.Q: Aren’t today’s investors different than pre-’08? Aren’t they more skeptical?A: I hope that through years like 2013 — which was a year of great advancement in terms of reduction of systemic risk — that the opinion of investors is improving. I hope that they are not skeptical, but maybe intellectually curious. I hope that they are witnessing that the cooperation between financial services firms and regulators is real and that we are aligned in terms of behaving in the best interests of the end investor.> Continued on Page 28AWARDS SUPPLEMENT 2014 | FTF NEWS MAGAZINE