This is a recurring event: View all events in the series “Data Bites”
Ruth and Ffion will provide an overview of Goldman Sachs and the Data Engineering team – which is responsible for the firm’s architecture, management and governance of market, reference and transactional data - as well as covering the specific topics below.
How we solved a 15-year problem with data science techniques
Ruth will explore how her team solved an intractable problem in the market data engineering team - that had gone unresolved for close to 15 years and posed a key risk to the firm - using data science techniques.
Using big-data wrangling methods they were able to model the dataset that logs every market data connection in the firm to locate code owners and identify code changes that were required to migrate from our legacy APIs.
Using this data-driven approach they were able to migrate 90% of the code base in two years and will deliver tangible cost savings for the firm.
‘Legend’ – how we open sourced Goldman Sach’s proprietary data management software
Ffion will explain how Legend was developed to provide a flexible data management platform that offers solutions to explore, define, connect, and integrate data into users’ business processes.
It allows non-traditional engineers to be involved and drive their business as it relates to data through an easy to use (non-code) UI while providing all the benefits of strong coding functionality and SDLC.
The financial industry are currently using the platform to collaborate on building data models (industry standards) and data transformations to streamline cross industry communication and reduce operating costs. See more at legend.finos.org.
About the Speakers:
Ruth McKeown – Head of Change for Market Data Engineering, Vice President
Ruth heads the Change Team for Market Data Engineering at Goldman Sachs which is tasked with leveraging our reference data to respond to regulatory and internal change initiatives.
She is currently leading a three-year programme to migrate our entire code base to the latest market data APIs which is driven by Python data models that analyses the market data connections consumed across the firm each week.
She is also co-ordinating the integration of NNIP – an Asset Manager in The Netherlands - for Data Engineering which entails integrating their reference data into our systems to enable a range of Compliance and Operational use-cases. Before joining Data Engineering,
Ruth was part of the Client Onboarding team where she led a data science team and applied a number of techniques she learnt during her Masters course at City, University of London. Ruth spent 11 years in management consulting – working for clients such as Costa Coffee, Tesco (UK & China) and RBS - before joining Goldman Sachs.
Ruth completed a BSc Mathematics with Philosophy at the University of Leeds in 2006 and a MSc in Data Science at City, University of London in 2017.
Ffion Acland – Co-Head of Global Markets Data Models & Governance, Vice President
Ffion co-heads the Global Markets Data Models & Governance Team at Goldman Sachs which is tasked with defining, building and governing the internal data models for derivatives products.
Since joining the Data Models & Governance team five years ago, she has contributed to many internal consumer implementations, continues to participate in the strategy, build and governance of the ISDA Common Domain Model, and most recently championed the project to open source the firm’s proprietary data management software ‘Legend’.
Previously, Ffion was a member of the Credit Middle Office team in Operations where she gained experience over a six year period in derivatives and cash products.
The need to successfully navigate the complexities of trade processing during that role led to a recognition of the industry-wide lack of coherence in data models.
Externally, she is co-chair of the FINOS Financial Objects SIG, bringing the industry together to collaborate on the build of industry wide standards.
Ffion completed a BSc Mathematics with Management at the University of Surrey in 2011 and an MBA at University of Exeter in 2021.
Attendance at City St George's events is subject to our terms and conditions.