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Insights on the Future of Operations: Highlights from SIFMA Ops

In this episode of The SIFMA Podcast, we recap highlights from SIFMA’s 2025 Operations Conference & Exhibition, held in Orlando, Florida. SIFMA President and CEO Kenneth E. Bentsen, Jr., is joined by Chief Operating Officer Joseph Seidel and Stephen Byron, Managing Director and Head of Technology, Operations, and Business Continuity. Together, they unpack insights from two standout sessions:

  • Redefining Efficiency and Client Strategy in a Changing Regulatory Landscape
  • Executive Insights: Modernization, Market Trends, and the Future of Operations

Tune in for expert perspectives on the evolving operations landscape and what it means for the industry going forward.

Transcript

Edited for clarity 

Kenneth E. Bentsen, Jr.: I’m Ken Bentsen, SIFMA President and CEO – welcome to our latest episode of The SIFMA Podcast. In early May, SIFMA hosted our 2025 Operations Conference in Orlando, FL. The event brought together over 900 industry operations professionals and featured more than 120 speakers on panels and in session spread over the four-day event.

I’m joined here today by my SIFMA colleagues Joe Seidel, Chief Operating Officer, and Steve Byron, Managing Director, Head of Technology, Operations, and Business Continuity, to talk about some of the key highlights from what was a very successful event. Momentarily, we will dig into two key sessions, but before we do, Steve, as you’ve had time to look back, what most stands out to you from the event?

Stephen Byron: I think the conference was a great event. As you noted, we were very fortunate to be able to hear from many leaders in the operations space, as well as regulators. Over four days of meaningful programming, operations and technology leaders from across the capital markets ecosystem shared their perspectives on where we are and where we’re going. The conference is over 50 years strong, and it continues to evolve every year, ensuring that it remains at the cutting edge of thought leadership in the operations and technology ecosystem. This year we brought to the forefront the buy and sell side interdependency and talked a great deal about the role of the operations professionals as innovators who drive transformation for their businesses, the markets, and their clients.

Our operations leadership panel really drove these points home. They discussed the main themes of the conference, starting on regulatory change and the change in regulatory environment, and they touched on the two biggest transformational changes in the industry – the move to centrally clear US Treasuries and the potential changes around extended hours trading. The second theme was the increased fusion or blurring of the lines between operations and technology. Operations personnel are now leveraging AI and using data in new ways to drive scale and efficiency, and they are also helping their firms think through how digital assets can be integrated into the traditional regulatory framework. And finally, operational resiliency was really at the forefront of the entire event with attendees getting to hear from industry-leading ops leaders.

Bentsen: That’s a that’s a great recap. I mean, it really was a valuable three days of insightful conversation, a tremendous amount of content. And I want to highlight as well, Steve, as you pointed out, this year’s conference had an unprecedented amount of buy-side content in addition to the sort of historical, sell-side content. And I think that was very well received by the group that was there. So now we’re going to play for our listeners, substantial excerpts from two of the main stage conversations we had at the conference. The first of these is a panel titled Redefining Efficiency and Client Strategy in a Changing Regulatory Landscape. Joe, you moderated this one. So, you know, maybe before we hit play, can you provide some highlights?

Joseph Seidel: Sure, I would offer four themes from our panel:

  1. Firms are balancing regulatory pressures and implementation challenges with the need to innovate in the operations space by bringing their regulatory and ops teams together to focus on both the here and now, but also on building scalability and sustainability for the future.
  2. Leveraging AI and digital transformation to deliver more personalized client experiences at scale starts with incorporating AI across the whole value chain. As one panelist said, you don’t have an AI department.
  3. People are seeing the most immediate and practical use cases for AI in operations right now in the boring stuff – automation and reconciliation – but see that moving to the next level, where it will really enhance the client experience.
  4. Beyond modernization, the panel believes firms can turn operational transformation into a long-term competitive advantage by looking at change collectively as part of their overall strategic agenda and not in silos. We heard loud and clear that the pace of change is quick and firms need to be ready to embrace it.

Bentsen: I think that sums it up nicely. Let’s play the clip for our podcast audience.

Byron: Ken, you moderated a panel of CEOs discussing modernization and the future of operations. Can you give us your impressions from that conversation?

Bentsen: It was a great panel, with leaders from Broadridge, BetaNXT, and DTCC. They see the current market environment as challenging and marked by rapid change, but noted issues like trade tariffs, immigration, and cultural matters are not significantly impacting their operations. They see clients prioritizing stability and seeking to leverage new technologies—AI was very much a part of the discussion—and noted that no significant market structure issues have been observed amidst recent instability.

Let’s give it a listen.

Bentsen: Thanks, Joe and Steve, and thank you to our audience for joining us today. We hope you found these conversations as valuable as we did. Comments and questions are welcome; listeners can reach us at [email protected]. These sessions, and many more, are all available to watch on demand on our website at https://events.sifma.org/ops. I encourage you to dive into each one for more important perspectives from this event.

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