Shameek Kundu, former chief data officer at Standard Chartered, and now head of financial services and chief strategy officer at Truera, a startup dedicated to building trust in AI, joined the Waters Wavelength Podcast to talk about AI explainability and how regulators approach the use of AI. 

5:00 Shameek joins the podcast and talks about the speed and focus that moving to a startup has given him. 
10:00 While today there is broad adoption of AI within the capital markets firms, the depth may not be there. 
11:30 The question cannot always be, ‘Why not use AI?’ It could also be, ‘Why do I use AI?’
14:30 Shameek says infrastructure for building and deploying ML models is still an art more than science.
15:30 The barriers that exist for AI in capital markets is the lack of trustworthiness and reliability of those models over time. 
21:30 Not many firms have a mature data and infrastructure blueprint to allow for AI innovation.
23:00 Shameek adds that in some ways, the data translator role is a stop-gap measure. 
26:00 How are regulators looking at the use of AI?
36:00 Shameek is excited about the use of data in addressing the current and next generation’s problems.

Episode 237: Shameek Kundu on AI explainability

This week’s guest is Nick Kolba, CEO and co-founder of Connectifi, who joins the podcast to discuss the Model Context Protocol, LLMs and agentic AI.  

0:00 – Tony and Shen talk about Astronomer’s ad campaign
5:30 – Nick Kolba joins the podcast 
8:00 – Step changes or big jumps in tech
18:00 – Excitement for the Model Context Protocol
21:00 – Parallels between FDC3 and MCP
24:30 – Concerns around security
30:00 – Work that still needs to be done
41:00 – Code generation for “senior engineers”


Episode 326: Connectifi’s Nick Kolba

This week’s guest is Mo Rahim, group chief data officer at Standard Chartered, who joins the podcast to discuss data and AI governance and guardrails for AI.

0:00 – Tony and Shen talk about recent shows they’ve watched 
9:00 – Mo Rahim joins the podcast
13:30 – Understand your core identity
17:00 – People and literacy
19:00 – Get your data right
25:00 – Standard Chartered’s research, partnerships, and innovation pillar   
29:00 – Building AI in a safe and responsible way
32:30 – AI is your plus one  


Episode 327: Standard Chartered’s Mo Rahim

This week’s guest is Lior Yogev, CEO and co-founder at FundGuard. He joins the podcast to discuss legacy tech stacks at asset management firms.

0:00 – Tony and Shen talk about personalities
10:00 – Lior Yogev joins the podcast
12:30 – When does a tech stack become legacy? 
19:00 – How asset managers modernize their platforms without excess downtime
22:30 – Migration times
26:30 – Total rebuild vs. slight tweaks

Episode 328: FundGuard’s Lior Yogev

This week, Reb and Tony talk about the internet and the problems compounded by AI.
https://www.waterstechnology.com/emerging-technologies/7952665/the-great-disappearing-internet%E2%80%94and-what-it-could-mean-for-your-llm

0:00 – Welcome to the team, Mya! You can reach her at Mya.Jheeta@infopro-digital.com 
7:00 – Reb and Tony discuss her recent column and the interconnected mess of a web of humans, internet, and AI


Episode 329: LLMs and the dead internet theory

This week, Shen and Reb discuss a recent MIT study on GenAI pilots, and Reb’s recent story about ModuleQ dissolving. 

https://mlq.ai/media/quarterly_decks/v0.1_State_of_AI_in_Business_2025_Report.pdf
https://www.waterstechnology.com/emerging-technologies/7952681/fintech-powering-lseg%E2%80%99s-ai-alerts-dissolves

Episode 330: AI hot takes

This week’s guest is Bill Murphy, managing partner at Cresting Wave 
0:00 – Tony and Shen discuss System of a Down and Gorillaz 
6:00 – Bill Murphy, Blackstone’s former CTO, joins to discuss that much-discussed MIT study on AI projects failing and factors executives should consider as the technology continues to evolves

Episode 331: Cresting Wave’s Bill Murphy

This week’s guest is Val Wotton, global head of equity solutions at DTCC. He joins to discuss the necessary steps leading up to the T+1 transitions in the UK and EU.

0:00 – Reb and Shen talk about Reb’s time in upstate New York
6:00 – Val Wotton joins the podcast and discusses the metrics from US T+1
13:00 – Analyze the entire lifecycle and do your impact assessment!
18:30 – Considerations from Asia
22:00 – Additional costs to assess
28:30 – Balancing mandatory deliverables and T+1 work
34:00 – Tweaking CSDR rules
42:00 – Resiliency can’t be understated


Episode 332: DTCC’s Val Wotton

No guest this week, folks. Tony and Shen discuss recent books they’ve read about data and analytics, and…humanity.


Episode 333: Baseball, analytics and therapy

This week, Bank of America’s Ashok Krishnan and Duncan McInnes join Tony to discuss the build, buy, borrow strategy and instilling the right culture within the bank.

0:00 – Shen and Tony talk about the Risk Live Asia 2025 conference in Singapore
7:30 – Ashok and Duncan join the podcast
11:30 – The build, buy, borrow strategy
14:00 – Building a rocket ship
19:00 – Instilling a culture that remains
22:30 – Doubling down on the ‘Why’
28:00 – Managing tech priorities
34:00 – Dealing with data, interoperability, and tech debt

Episode 334: BofA’s Krishnan and McInnes

This week’s episode is one of those where Wei-Shen and Tony blather on about an array of things, including generative AI, cybersecurity, and Taylor Swift’s new album. Listen at your own risk.

Episode 335: Some tech talk...kinda

Wei-Shen Wong and Anthony Malakian discuss the hottest financial technology topics in the capital markets every week.

Episode 237: Shameek Kundu on AI explainability

Waters Wavelength Podcast

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