Hacker News Reader

Quite a few banks have something called "Innovation Labs" or similar whose job is to do exactly that: match emerging technology with appropriate internal use-cases. Part need-finder and part technologist. Capital One Labs, for instance, was crucial in helping the startup where I work land its first F500 deal. I'd imagine that "innovation labs"-type units are probably emerging at enterprises outside of finance as well.

We do this at McKinsey too

What part of McKinsey does this/how?

> I think there will be a role emerging within Enterprises, (sort of like an "insurance broker" who finds the best coverage options among a sea of choices), that will be responsible for surveying new technologies that could potentially help the firm, and running pilot programs to see how they potentially help make the org. more efficient or more competitive.

You have just described my role. We're calling ourselves Emerging Technology Specialists for the time being.

As someone who built a major crypto exchange working on a second fintech business, this sounds interesting. Can you explain a bit more about where you work, the types of tech you've worked with and how you see this evolving? Feel free to reach me by email if you'd prefer not to discuss here.

Very cool. I was just thinking about this yesterday. It'd be really interesting to have the roll of researching the upcoming techs and trying to see how they'd integrate. Are you a start up or do you work for a larger corporation?

There are a growing number of consultants who have realized that a model exists helping enterprises work with startups.

isn't that what the CIO is responsible for?

It depends on whose definition you use with respect to the CIO/CTO role. In my experience, CIOs are typically more focused on the internal IT infrastructure, keeping it secure, running smoothly, etc., (i.e. an more inward facing almost operational role), whereas a CTO should be outward facing looking and building technological advantage for the firm (i.e. a more outward facing commercial role).

However, I've seen it argued both ways. I'd be interested to hear what others think on the differences in the CIO and CTO roles.

From what I have seen, a lot of [smaller?] banks don't even have CTOs (including the one I worked at), just CIOs which ultimately fulfilled that role.

They might have VPs of Technology though (usually along with some other role, such as CIO).

Unfortunately, the distinction is usually lost on me too.

Why would the Chief Investment Officer at a bank be involved in which technologies to adopt? Or did you mean Chief Information Officer or Chief Innovation Officer (which Wikipedia says exists, but I had never heard of)?

Chief Information Officer.

She is mentioned in the first section of the article...

As an intern, I was a tools engineer that was responsible for building or buying tools to solve engineering problems.

There is team that does that here at my company. They call themselves the innovation team