New GreenKey chief exec bullish over tech changes

The new chief executive of US-based firm GreenKeysaid the voice tech firm has a bright future with investment banks after makinga technical change to address bank concerns over using a cloud-based hosted voicesolution.

Nader Shwayhat, the new chief executive ofGreenKey whose appointment was announced on Wednesday, said the firm hasinvested recently in enhancing the technology that underpins its voiceanalytics products.

He told FOW: “We have been having excitingconversations with tier one banks, and a hosted solution requires us toovercome many institutional hurdles. We, in turn, have extended the platform soit can be federated to exist in a cloud of clouds that can sit onsite within abank’s infrastructure.”

The new chief executive said the firm hasalso invested to enable its products to work seamlessly with third-partyapplications.

“We have been working hard in recent monthsto re-architect the platform, expanding our API connectivity and Gatewaystrategy -- which has opened up a host of enterprise client opportunities,”Shwayhat told FOW.

Shwayhat, who became a strategic advisor atGreenKey late last year, was officially appointed as chief executive of the NewYork-based firm on Wednesday, replacing former chief exec Paul Christensen, the former Goldman Sachs banker wholeft late last year just months after assuming that role in March 2016.

Shwayhat was latterly the head of globalsales at Novus Partners, the New York-based buy-side tech firm, and previously workedfor three years as executive director and global head of sales for CME Directat the Chicago-based exchange giant.

He told FOW: “GreenKey is interestingbecause it is leading the field in one of the last areas of the financialmarkets that has been off-limits to technology, namely the data embedded invoice trading and communications.”

The new chief said the firm is taking amore collaborative approach, seeking to work with established tech suppliers tohelp firms, including the largest investment banks, move to a more efficient,hosted voice analytics model

He said: “It is too difficult to replace2,000 turrets and decades worth of behavior today in one shot; rather, ourfocus is to work with our customers to glide them into a smooth transition thatcan include deploying our technology side-by-side with their existing solutionand giving them new functionality they have never experienced before.”