Voice-over: This is Leaders in Finance, a podcast where we explore the people behind successful careers. We speak with the leaders of today and tomorrow to discuss their motivations, their organisations, and their personal lives. Why? Because the financial sector could use a little more honest conversation.
We would like to thank our partners for their ongoing support: EY, Mogelijk Vastgoedfinancieringen, and Lepaya. Your host is Kees de Wit.
Kees: Welcome everyone to a new episode of the Leaders in Finance podcast. I am Kees de Wit, and we are coming to you live from Italy, where we are attending OWIN26, a multi-day event hosted by Objectway.
We are here with around 200 professionals from across the financial sector, gathering to share insights, network, and inspire one another.
Leaders in Finance is more than just a podcast. We organise large-scale events in partnership with industry leaders like Objectway, offer in-depth training through our academy, and host exclusive networking lunches throughout the year. Whether through live events, digital content, or educational programmes, our mission is clear: to connect and strengthen the financial community.
Today, after OWIN26, we are taking a moment to sit down for a short but powerful conversation with Alberto Cuccu. Alberto Cuccu is Chief Operations Officer International at Objectway. Welcome.
Alberto: Thank you.
Kees: For the first question, could you briefly introduce yourself?
Alberto: First of all, I am happy to join. My role is Chief Operations Officer, and we provide what we call solution as-a-service, as explained during OWIN26.
My role is to design, set up, configure, and deliver solutions to our customers. So operations means understanding the customer, designing, building, and delivering.
Kees: And you do this with an international team, I assume?
Alberto: Yes, with an international team. That means the team includes people from across the company: Italians, Belgians, Dutch, people from the UK, and Canadians. It is a large community.
Kees: Yes, we know Kurt and Gert-Jan very well. Nice to hear. OWIN26 has just concluded. How was your experience of the event? Did you enjoy it?
Alberto: I loved the event. I am very proud to see so many customers joining and being happy to share their experiences, both in their own businesses and with Objectway, with others.
That is not something we should take for granted. It shows that our customer base is successful and satisfied with what we provide. And since it is my role to make them happy, I could not be happier myself.
Kees: They certainly looked happy. I think it was a great event with a strong outcome.
Alberto: Yes, we wanted it to be an opportunity for customers to talk to each other, share their views with us, exchange experiences, and learn from leading analysts such as Forrester, Celent, and Gartner.
We invited some of the best in the market. We are not here only to showcase what Objectway does. We are here to create a space for discussion and to understand where the market, technology, and innovation are heading.
That is the only way to truly move the market forward. I think the event delivered valuable insights for everyone, and people left satisfied. I am also very proud of what our marketing team organised.
Kees: I completely agree. It was an amazing event. Zooming in a bit, for listeners who were not here, we heard a lot about scaling, innovation, and transformation. These are key themes. What are the most important strategic shifts right now, in your view?
Alberto: We need to start with a paradox. Today, innovation, especially technological innovation, is incredibly abundant. There are so many possibilities that it is sometimes difficult to decide where to start and what to use. Yet despite this abundance, true scalability, the ability to grow revenue and market share without increasing complexity and costs linearly, is still lacking for most organisations.
At this conference, we saw clear differences between leaders and followers. When discussing scalability and innovation, we must analyse what leaders have done to succeed, what works and what does not. What works, first of all, is building a strong platform foundation. Objectway plays a key role here, offering an end-to-end platform that covers the full value chain for private banks, wealth managers, and asset managers. This platform acts as a lever for customers to innovate and scale. The second point is that innovation must align with each customer’s business model, their ecosystem. Every ecosystem is different because companies compete by differentiating their business models.
For example, some fintech banks focus on low-cost trading, broad product access, and fully digital experiences. That is one model. On the other hand, boutique asset managers focus on high-net-worth individuals and personalised service, which requires a completely different approach. Large institutions such as Crédit Agricole, BNP Paribas, and UBS operate across multiple pillars, including asset servicing, fund management, and discretionary management, each with its own value chain. So innovation must be mapped to these different value chains. We call this solution design, creating solutions tailored to specific business models. However, this must be done efficiently. Otherwise, scalability is lost as costs increase. The solution is to build on a platform with reusable core components that can be configured for different business models.
Then, through configuration, personalisation, and sometimes custom development, you adapt the final 10% to truly fit the customer’s needs, while keeping 90% standardised.That is what I focus on every day.
Kees: It sounds very hands-on. Yesterday in your keynote, you said something that really stood out to me: Scaling without differentiation is just standardisation.
Alberto: Yes.
Kees: And I think with an object-oriented platform you really encounter this.
Alberto: As I said yesterday, every customer is ambitious. You would not even start a business if you were not ambitious. What makes the difference is execution. Execution requires two steps. First, you create the core, the foundation. Because if you do not have a foundation, how can you differentiate? If you start differentiating without it, it simply will not work.
Think about the new democratisation of wealth initiatives with fintech banks. If they do not have a scalable trading engine behind them, you can build the best app in the world, but if I click and it does not execute or takes too long, I will use it once and then leave. So the foundation is key. Only then can you differentiate on top.
Kees: Yes, I completely agree. One of my next questions was how Objectway positions itself. If I understand correctly, it is by delivering an efficient solution design and a strong platform, a core foundation. That is really what Objectway wants to be and aspires to be. We also saw this in the presentation by Crédit Agricole, where it was explained in more detail.
Alberto: Yes, we call it “solution as-a-service,” as I mentioned earlier. If you look at the market, people often talk about software as a service. But software as a service does not work for leaders in finance, because it implies the same solution for everyone. As I said before, in finance there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Institutions differentiate through their business models. They do not need generic software, they need solutions tailored to their business model. Perhaps for something like accounting you can use a generic solution, but not for core business processes. Take Crédit Agricole as an example. It is a large group that we serve across three pillars.
One is Amundi SGR, the discretionary management arm. It is very successful, for instance, in Italy. Then there is CACEIS Bank, the custody arm, which handles transfer agency and fund accounting. And finally, there is Indosuez Wealth Management, which focuses on high-net-worth clients.
We serve all three and create a unified value chain between them. As a client, you might have funds with Crédit Agricole in an advisory portfolio, part of your assets in discretionary management, and, as a high-net-worth individual, require tax reporting and optimisation. We provide interconnected components to each of these entities, allowing them to manage these three pillars effectively.
Another important point is localisation. Wealth and asset management in Europe differ by country. While processes are similar, regulation and local requirements are critical. That is why we call ourselves both global and local. We have solutions that scale internationally, combined with local teams that bring the expertise needed to adapt them to each country.
Kees: Yes, and I think that was also mentioned in another presentation yesterday, possibly yours as well, about a front-to-back-to-front solution.
Alberto: I spoke quite a lot.
Kees: I have many quotes from your presentations.
Alberto: That is good, it means it was worthwhile. Front-to-back-to-front is a very important concept. Often people say front-to-back, but data does not just move in one direction. It also needs to go back-to-front.
If I am a client and I execute a trade, it goes from front to back to the market. But then I want to see the results. I want to know how that trade affects my tax position, for example whether it improves my situation through gains and losses. Or I want to understand how my portfolio has been rebalanced and what that means for my risk exposure. So every action generates new insights, new analytics, and a next-best action. This applies whether you are an advisor, an end client, or a back-office professional.
This needs to be designed from the start. What does not work is innovation in isolation. If you only build a nice front-end without a strong foundation, it will fail. If you build a strong foundation that enables front-to-back-to-front functionality, then you can differentiate through user experience. But if you only focus on the surface, you risk creating something that looks good but does not function properly.
Kees: That is a strong comparison. Would you say that this is the biggest gap between strategy and execution today, that things are approached too in isolation?
Alberto: Yes, that is a key issue. Scalability requires both execution and differentiation, and it also requires an ecosystem of partnerships. Another important point we emphasised during this conference is that no one can do everything alone anymore. Even firms like Deloitte, Celent, and Forrester highlighted this.
You need to distribute ownership across your value chain. Financial institutions should focus on what they do best, delivering financial services, and leverage partners to build the foundation that enables differentiation. This does not have to be a single provider. It can be a mix of partners, but it must be designed that way from the beginning.
Kees: So always design, a holistic approach. To wrap things up, we have looked at the current situation. If you look ahead two or three years, what is one development that is still underestimated?
Alberto: It may sound obvious, but it is the embedding of AI into the innovation landscape. AI will fundamentally transform business. As I mentioned in my speech, we are moving from systems of operation to systems of action. Systems that do not just support humans, but actually execute tasks on their behalf.
This does not mean humans disappear. There will always be humans in the loop for control, supervision, and exception management. At Objectway, we already see this in practice. We provide business processes as a service for large clients, managing transfer agency operations for over 100 billion in assets. By introducing AI in certain areas, we have reduced workload by 70 to 75 percent.
Kees: Impressive numbers.
Alberto: In other areas, people cannot yet be replaced. Human oversight remains essential, especially because AI can make errors and must be carefully managed from a compliance perspective. AI will also change user interaction. Instead of performing many manual steps, you may simply give a prompt, generate a result, and manage exceptions.
On the front end, I see AI as an enabler for advisors. But we must remember that finance is ultimately about people. Clients have emotions and behavioural biases, which AI does not. When markets are volatile or uncertainty arises, clients seek reassurance from another human, not just a machine.
That means advisors will need to strengthen their psychological and interpersonal skills. They must manage emotions, understand behaviour, and guide clients effectively. AI can support them with information and analysis, but the human element remains essential. Most clients lose money not because markets fail, but because of their behaviour. They buy high and sell low. Managing that behaviour will become even more important, and that is something AI cannot replace.
Kees: So in the coming years, embedding AI will be key, while allowing humans to remain human and be supported by AI.
Alberto: Exactly, especially on the front end.
Kees: Thank you very much, Alberto Cuccu, COO International at Objectway. And thank you to our listeners. We are closing this episode live from Sorrento, on the Amalfi Coast, at the OWIN26 event. See you in the next episode.
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