Lisa Iagatta, vice chair for ISITC, will move up to the top post, following Erica Borghi who completes her term at the end of this month.
Lisa Iagatta, chair, ISITC
Starting next year, Lisa Iagatta, director of account management for investment services at Fiserv, will be the new chair of ISITC, the industry trade group focused on creating and promoting securities operations standards.
One of her key initiatives, Iagatta tells FTF News, will be to foster strategic collaborations with other global financial services and standards organizations.
Iagatta, who will serve a two-year term through 2020, takes over for Erica Borghi, a vice president and the head of the risk and administration team within BBH Infomediary. Borghi completes her term as chair by the end of December 2018.
Just prior to her promotion, Iagatta has been serving as vice chair for the 2017-2018 term and has served as a co-chair on ISITC’s reconciliation working group since 2012, officials say. She has also held many elected positions on the board of directors, including executive sponsor for the reconciliation and reference data working groups and the vendor forum (2014) and treasurer (2016).
With more than 20 years of experience in the investment community, Iagatta has broad experience in front, back, and middle office operations. She has been with Fiserv since 2010, and previously held operational management roles at Columbia Threadneedle Investments, Eaton Vance Management International and Putnam Investments, officials say.
“During my term as chair, my goals for ISITC will be to continue to have a positive impact on the global financial services market, to expand our membership, and to lead strategic collaborations with other global financial services and standards organizations,” Iagatta tells FTF News about her main goals for the next two years.
Several new developments will hold her attention during her term, Iagatta says.
“In the next two years, we’re expecting a major emphasis will be placed on data management and definitions, which is something that ISITC will continue to collaborate on in our working groups, forums, and events. Additionally, a main focus for financial services operations will be the implementation of emerging technologies to automate and streamline existing processes,” Iagatta says.
Iagatta will address ISITC members at the 25th Annual Securities Operations Summit on March 24 to 27, 2019 at the Intercontinental Hotel in Boston, according to ISITC. The conference, “Disrupting Financial Services: Charting the Course,” will focus on emerging technologies, regulation, and data management, among many other operations issues.
“The financial services industry has dramatically evolved during the last decade — and so has ISITC,” Iagatta says in a prepared statement. “I am honored to serve as the chair of an organization whose members are dedicated to keeping up with a changing profession and implementing standards and best practices for the benefit of the industry at large.”
Erica Borghi, outgoing chair, ISITC
Borghi says in a prepared statement that ISITC “has experienced great change and success over the past two years, all while continuing to deliver on our promise of developing standards and best practices for financial services professionals. I have no doubt that Lisa, with her strong leadership, creativity, and passion for the industry and organization, will make a fantastic chair and provide the guidance and leadership necessary to build on ISITC’s success in 2019 and beyond.”
Borghi has been involved with ISITC since 2004 and a member of the board since 2008, officials say. Her time on the ISITC board included serving as executive sponsor of the settlements working group, the regulatory working group, and as a member of the finance, website, and nominating committees.
Borghi quickly reviewed her biggest achievements over the past two years with FTF News.
“When I assumed the role of chair nearly two years ago, I focused on evolving the organization by developing goals to improve membership, content and communications, and leadership,” Borghi tells FTF News. “I’m happy to report that we made the most progress on our content and communications. There are a few key improvements that we made that will contribute to ISITC’s continued success: restructuring the organization, focusing on the right content and format for our meetings, and elevating our global presence,” she says.
“We modified our meeting structure to showcase our thought leadership in the industry. At this year’s annual Securities Operations Summit, we took a different approach to speakers and added multiple keynotes, carrying the themes into the working groups and forums where appropriate,” Borghi says.
“With the heightened focus on technology in operations and regulations, ISITC was able to provide a platform to collaborate on multiple industry initiatives, such as the U.S. migration to a T+2 settlement cycle, tax implications from IRS 871m, MiFID II reporting requirements, FinCEN Customer Due Diligence, and General Data Protection Regulation,” Borghi adds. “ISITC provided education, and open dialogue on implementation strategies and risk mitigation. We built a community to share experiences as the industry implements APIs, DLT, and RPA to improve operational processes, in addition to discussing the risks and challenges associated with cryptoassets.”
Borghi also says that ISITC expanded its global collaboration efforts during her term.
“ISITC has a presence at standards and market practice organization like ISO, X9, and SMPG as well as other industry associations such as SIFMA Asset Management Group, FTF, FIX, FIA, EDMCouncil, ISDA, and our affiliate, ISITC Europe – just to name a few,” Borghi says. “ISITC, SIFMA Asset Management Group and FIA jointly created the market practice on the margin call collateral process across ETD and OTC cleared products.”
Borghi says that there were a few surprises over the past two years such as “the quick pace at which our industry rallied around so many competing initiatives. Global financial institutions and asset managers analyzed and implemented a multitude of regulatory initiatives over the past two years, while simultaneously enhancing data quality and developing use cases for APIs, DLT, and RPA.”
At BBH Infomediary, Borghi oversees the development of risk mitigation strategies across market practice changes, compliance updates, new client onboarding, and know your customer (KYC) processes, officials say. She also contributes to the company’s overall strategy for SWIFT/ISO messaging.
In addition to the top spot, ISITC has announced three new officers, which include Kristin Hochstein of Refinitiv, formerly the Financial and Risk business of Thomson Reuters, as first vice chair; Rich Robinson of Bloomberg as second vice chair, and Bryan Vivaldo of Vanguard as treasurer. Salome Winge of Northern Bank will continue to serve as secretary.
ISITC involves investment managers, broker dealers, custodians, utilities and technology vendors in the development and promotion of standards and best practices that target operational efficiencies across the securities industry, officials say.
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