C2C Launches Financial Services Community at 2Gather: NYC

On February 9, 2023, C2C formally launched its Financial Services community with a 2Gather event at Google's Chelsea Market offices in New York City. However, for participating speakers and guests, the community experience began the evening before. On the night of February 8, at Chelsea's Le Zie Trattoria, executives from some of the largest financial services enterprises, including JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, and TD Bank, mingled over cocktails and traditional Venetian fare with technologists, startup founders, and representatives from C2C partners Publicis Sapient, NetApp, and Workspot, the latter a sponsor of the dinner. The relaxed atmosphere and emphasis on personal connections set the stage for the event experience to come the next day.

"It's so easy to show up to these events and be corporate, buttoned up," said Paerpay CEO Derek Canton, who dined with representatives from Publicis Sapient before switching seats and trading stories about recent travels in Southeast Asia with Michael Beal, CEO of Data Capital Management ( @MikeBeal ), who leads C2C's financial services group. "I'm more casual, because I want to be approachable. I'm just like, 'this is me.' I felt super comfortable, and it really created space for that, so I loved that."

"Publicis Sapient works with large enterprises, and PaerPay is a startup, so we don't cross paths as often," said Sharonyka Kumar ( @sharonyka.kumar ), Group VP and Global Head of Google Practice at Publicis Sapient. "Their solution has a very intriguing piece to it around data monetization, which is something that we care a lot about for our customers, and our paths would not have crossed if it were not for the community bringing us together."

In addition to meeting the PaerPay team for the first time, Sharonyka also discussed current and future collaborations with Deepinder Kaur ( @Deepinder ) and Larissa Filine of Deutsche Bank. "Deepinder is specifically responsible for their cloud transformation journey. It was a great connect for her and I, and she knew Publicis Sapient because of her work with her peers, so she hears our name quite a bit," Sharonyka said. "What we decided to do at the end of it was come back to her with some of our key stakeholders in the US, whatever SVPs or financial services live here in New York."

At the event itself, the relationship-building facilitated at the dinner made for lively discussion onstage. "That vulnerability is really important," said Derek, who was particularly animated during Paerpay's fireside chat with Publicis Sapient and during a panel discussion with Sharonyka, Michael, OpCo Operating Advisor Mark Etherington ( @Metherin ), and Geoff Tudor, Director of Google Cloud Solutions at NetApp. Geoff also delivered a presentation and, at dinner the night before, discussed a potential new business opportunity with Clair Hur, Senior Program Manager at Vimeo ( @write2clair ). During the discussion, the panelists agreed early on that legacy financial services organizations can be unnecessarily obstinate when it comes to the prospect of cloud adoption, setting the tone for a conversation that explored ample controversial territory.

The ideas introduced during the sessions, however, were only the points of departure for the conversations that followed during the closing networking reception, where attendees deepened the relationships they'd built throughout that day and the previous night. "A lot of events that are put on, they're hyper-focused on the topic at hand, whereas you guys are able to take everyone a step back from that and think about the power of community and actually driving that at a higher level," said Bogdan Petrescu ( @bogdan.petrescu ), Senior Director of Strategic Alliances at Workspot. "I like that a lot."

To be a part of these conversations and make connections with these and other colleagues, join the C2C Financial Services community!