Blockchain: What Is It and Why All the Hype?

The term "blockchain" exploded on the financial technology scene in 2015 quickly moving from a narrative about a cryptocurrency to full blown financial disruption. What is it, how does it work and what's the future look like for this hot foundational technology? And how can FIBO play a key role in enabling distributed ledger banking capabilities?

Chris is a Senior Advisor to the EDM Council's FIBO initiatives as they relate to new Blockchain and Financial Technologies. Chris is seasoned executive with over 27 years of institutional, entrepreneurial and consulting experience across asset classes, client segments and financial platforms. Within bulge-bracket banks such as Salomon Brothers, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank, he led and managed global institutional sales/trading, research publishing and distribution, electronic trading, and commission recapture initiatives. As an entrepreneur, he founded and led companies in blockchain and digital currencies, peer-to-peer marketplaces and market networks for counterparty due diligence and compliance. As a strategic advisor and consultant, he has advised multi-billion-dollar asset management organizations and global data vendors on application, market and platform development strategies.

David Newman is Senior Vice President and Strategic Planning Manager for the Innovation Group at Wells Fargo Bank. David chairs the Financial Industry Business Ontology (FIBO) program for the Enterprise Data Management Council, which is an industry-wide initiative to develop semantic knowledge bases for the financial industry. FIBO is being developed as the next generation global financial data standard. At Wells Fargo, David provides leadership for innovation initiatives that utilize emerging technologies that will have positive impact upon Wells Fargo’s customers and internal operations. David’s area of concentration is the application of machine intelligence technologies to financial services. This includes a focus on semantic technologies, machine learning, natural language processing, and graph analytics. David also leads the Semantic Technology Community of Interest at Wells Fargo. David is a frequent speaker at technology, academic and financial industry conferences. David holds an MBA in Information Technology and an MSW in Psychiatric Social Work.