McKenna, a Citi director and GLEIF’s head of standards, is the 2020 recipient of the Standard of Excellence Award for her decades spent developing standards for securities operations.
Karla McKenna
Securities industry standards organization ISITC has named industry veteran Karla McKenna as the 2020 recipient of the ISITC Standard of Excellence Award for her many efforts to bring standardization and efficiency to trading operations.
McKenna received the award during ISITC’s virtual conference, ISITC Week 2020, Sept 14-17. McKenna is also the 2017 recipient of the Editor’s Choice Award for Operational Excellence, part of the FTF News Technology Innovation Awards program.
McKenna is a director at Citi and the head of standards for the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF). She is also managing director for the recently formed GLEIF Americas. She oversees the development and implementation of GLEIF standards and cooperation among international standards groups “to maximize data quality and the operational integrity of the Global LEI System,” according to ISITC.
“The ISITC Standard of Excellence Award was created to recognize an individual who’s made a significant contribution to the financial services industry and made an exceptional contribution to ISITC. As you know by now, it’s a volunteer-run organization,” said Krista Scharfenberger, secretary of the ISITC board of directors, before announcing the award. Scharfenberger is also vice president at BNY Mellon and manager of the communications management unit within global securities operations.
“While we normally present this award in-person as part of our March event, and it’s a bit of surprise at the March event, we have to do things a bit differently this year,” Scharfenberger says, acknowledging the pandemic-induced global shutdown. “It’s impossible to talk about the evolution of standards in our industry and not mention this year’s recipient, Ms. Karla McKenna. Karla’s career has been dedicated to creating market practice and defining standards in our industry, as well as educating our community about them.”
Among her achievements, McKenna has spent more than 30 years at Citi, focusing on managing market practice and standards. She has also served as: a member of the ISITC board for three terms; the immediate past chair of the ISITC Securities Market Practice Group (SMPG); and chair of the International Organization for Standardization Technical Committee 68 (ISO/TC 68) from 2006 to 2018.
McKenna also designed and launched ISITC’s Regulatory Working Group, and served as the executive sponsor, according to ISITC.
She is a current board member of XBRL International, the Eurofiling Foundation, and the Accredited Standards Committee X9 (ASC X9).
“She’s often a bridge between organizations, which allows for open dialogue on issues facing our industry today,” Scharfenberger says. “She has the unique ability to translate topics that are complex in nature, into terms that we can all understand, so we can all participate in the discussion.”
“It’s really special for me to receive this award from ISITC,” McKenna said in remarks delivered virtually after receiving the award.
“Members of ISITC keep necessary financial track of transactions moving in the hardest of times. During the Great Recession, during this pandemic, and ensuring that investments, banking, and other financial activities can keep going, that economies can benefit not only here in the U.S., but globally. There is still more value to be realized, more efficiencies to be gained, more stability to be achieved,” McKenna said.
McKenna noted that she plans “to contribute to standards for years in the future, especially to progress the LEI work in digital identity management.”
A committee consisting of ISITC board members, led by Erica Borghi, a former ISITC chair, picks the recipient of the annual Standard of Excellence Award.
ISITC convenes investment managers, broker-dealers, custodians, utilities, and technology vendors to foster standards and best practices for securities operations.
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