Rob Lane

As markets move toward T+1 settlement, AI-driven workflows, and tokenised assets, the demands on connectivity are shifting rapidly. For buy-side firms, network performance isn’t just about speed- it underpins regulatory compliance, operational resilience, and access to liquidity across global venues. This session explores how trading desks and technology leaders are re-evaluating their connectivity layer: ensuring time-stamping accuracy, mitigating outages and cyber risk, and building data pipelines that can handle ever-growing volumes. How should firms balance cost, resilience, and performance? And what infrastructure choices today will determine the scalability of tomorrow’s trading environment?

Data is the lifeblood of the modern trading desk- but without the right architecture, it’s fragmented, costly, and underutilised. This panel explores how buy-side firms are redesigning data pipelines and governance frameworks to power trading workflows, real-time insights, and adapt to evolving market demands.

How should desks approach cloud migration without losing control of sensitive data? What governance structures are needed to manage vendor relationships and ensure quality across sources? And how can a well-designed vendor strategy help firms scale capabilities without overburdening internal teams? Panellists will share practical approaches to structuring data, optimising cloud usage, and making vendor partnerships a source of competitive advantage.