In this Episode
In this episode, Rory Holland interviews Kevin Allen from ValidMind, discussing the critical role of model risk management in banking, especially in the context of increasing AI adoption. Kevin explains how ValidMind’s platform simplifies the model validation process, saving banks time and costs while reducing risks. The discussion also covers the importance of building trust in AI, navigating regulatory challenges, and the significance of having a strong team behind ValidMind’s innovative solutions.
Key Takeaways
- Model risk management is essential for banks’ operations.
- AI adoption in banking is growing but comes with risks.
- The platform helps banks save time and reduce costs.
- ValidMind serves banks of all sizes, not just large ones.
- Model Risk Management as a Service is a key offering.
- Building trust in AI is crucial for banks’ acceptance.
- Regulatory compliance is a significant challenge for AI.
- The team at ValidMind brings extensive industry experience.
- A strong company culture is vital for startup success. Brand recognition has significantly improved over the past year.
Podcast Episode Transcript
Partnerships and Collaborations for Growth
Rory Holland (00:03)
All right, welcome to Mighty Finsights. My name is Rory Holland and I’m joining here with Kevin Allen of Validmind. Kevin, welcome to Mighty Finsights.
Kevin Allen (00:13)
Thanks so much Rory, appreciate you having me on.
Rory Holland (00:15)
man, awesome to have you so you’re telling me off-camera you’re not in the united states
Kevin Allen (00:21)
Correct, correct. I’m coming to you from Toronto. So we’re here in Toronto for the GFMI Model Risk Canada Conference. so having a lot of great conversations with some Canadian banks and, you know, kind of taking in the cold weather. So I’m usually based in Sarasota, Florida, and it’s about 14 degrees Fahrenheit here right now. going from 80 degrees to 14 degrees is a shock for the soul to be frank.
Rory Holland (00:55)
I understand. grew up in Detroit, Michigan, so I can certainly relate. So I assume that things are going well for you guys. I’ve seen some great press and some great announcements. And what I thought I would do for the sake of our audience, I’m going to read a little bit. And I’d love to hear a little bit more background from your perspective on ValidMind. So leading the future of model risk management.
ValidMind helps businesses drastically improve how they test, document, validate, govern, and monitor their models. All in one streamlined platform, we empower organizations to be valid, trust your models, add real value, and innovate faster every day. Super interesting.
Kevin Allen (01:41)
That captures it, Yeah, so it’s interesting, model risk management is one of those functions within the bank that’s kind of unheralded and happens a little bit behind the scenes. It’s not when you think about…
bank functions, you don’t think immediately of the model risk managers, your model developers, your model validators, and your auditors. They’re not always top of mind, but it’s one of the most critically important functions within a bank because…
These are the lines of defense that are protecting the models that banks rely upon to drive revenue, and drive innovation, drive growth. And they come with inherent risk, and they come with regulations. And all banks have to adhere to some regulation. often banks are multinational, so they have to comply with a bunch of different regulations. And with the proliferation of AI models, more more banks want to use artificial intelligence and that’s adding complexity to their model risk management practices. And so we provide a platform that comes in and helps them manage it all in one place. So a lot of these functions were done using Word docs and Excel sheets and it gets messy by the time you get something, a model documented at the developer level thrown over the fence to the validator level, thrown back over the fence to the developer with changes, thrown back to the validator, then to the auditor. by that time, you’re dealing with version control issues, you’re dealing with you know, data that just gets lost or whatever. so ValidMind is here to radically and drastically simplify that process. what banks are finding is that they’re saving time, they’re reducing their risk, and they’re cutting costs, which you can’t ask for much more than that.
The Importance of Model Risk Management in Banking:
Rory Holland (03:46)
And you mentioned, were there three layers to it? Did I hear three different roles that are involved in model creation?
Kevin Allen (03:51)
Yep.
Exactly, so you have your, we call them the three lines of defense. the three lines of defense were established after the banking crisis of 2008. And what happened were these regulations came out, specifically SR 11.7 in the United States that dictated that all banks have to have a model developer, a model validator, and then an audit process. And all three have to work independently. Independently, yet cooperatively, we’ll say. And so the ValidMind platform is here to help them work cooperatively and streamline a lot of these processes that have really become increasingly complex and will continue to become more and more complex as bigger, better, faster, stronger AI models come to bear.
Rory Holland (04:46)
Yeah, and are you guys talking about SR 711? Just want to mention that. So that came out in 2008. So the requirements for how financial institutions create models, implement models, manage models changed. Did I hear that right? OK.
Kevin Allen (05:03)
Exactly, yeah.
Yeah, so when the banking crisis happened in 2008, it took a while for SR 11.7 to come to bear. So I think it technically was established in 2011, and at that time, know, large bank maybe had a few hundred models. Now they have, you know, now your bigger banks, your tier one large banks might have up to 10,000 models in production at any given time. Smaller banks may have anywhere from one to 100. And so we’re able to scale up and customize the platform to meet the needs of the larger banks that have a ton of models in production and then some of your smaller banks for whom we’re offering a service called Model Risk Management as a service. So not only are they coming onto the platform, but we’re helping them understand how to validate complex generative AI models in ways that they haven’t really been able to do it before. So we’re in a lot of ways unlocking AI innovation for tier two, tier three banks especially.
ValidMind’s Approach to Different Bank Tiers:
Rory Holland (06:11)
Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. there’s ValidMind serves all different tiers of banks, is that right? So whether they’re brand new to the notion of AI, integrating AI into their modeling system, or they’re more advanced and have thousands and thousands of models, either way, ValidMind is set up to serve those different tiers.
Kevin Allen (06:17)
Absolutely, yeah.
Absolutely, absolutely. And that’s one of the things that we’re finding in a lot of conversations that we’re having with banks. You kind of go in and there’s often an assumption that, well, you guys are just for the big banks. Not at all. No. One of our biggest early success stories was our work with General Bank of Canada, which is definitely on the smaller side of banks in Canada. And we were able to work
with them to validate a model and take them through with that model risk management as a service process and really help them understand how to do this work and then send them on their way using the platform, they had budgeted, compared to what they had budgeted, we beat their budgeted costs by 90%. We helped them save 70 % of the time that they thought it was going to take to validate their models and they were able to realize this in 30 days. So that 30, 70, 90 experience is one that we’re trying to replicate across the board with all of our banking clients.
Rory Holland (07:42)
That is remarkable. So 90 % savings. Did I hear that?
Kevin Allen (07:48)
90 % savings compared to what they thought they were going to have to spend to get these models validated. And that includes, you know, they thought they were going to have to hire more. They thought they were going to have to staff up. And we were able to come in and show them how they didn’t need to necessarily staff up, how they could manage with the existing staff and help them, you know, get on the platform and start managing their models in a more effective way.
Rory Holland (08:16)
Impressive. is it typical relationship look like for you guys when you talk about getting to those kind of outcomes? How do you work with the banks to arrive at, I guess there’s some form of analysis and seeing what their processes are and all that.
Kevin Allen (08:30)
Sure.
No, absolutely. We sit down with all prospective customers to first listen. We want to understand, are you coming from? What’s your current practice? Where is it falling short? Where is it failing you? Where are your biggest pain points? And then how can we come in and craft a solution that’s tailored to your needs? Some banks come in and they’re super excited about model documentation automation, where you have developers that are spending up to 50%, sometimes more, of their time on model documentation. So these are some super talented people within the banks, and they’re doing busy work, essentially. They’re doing…
labor-intensive manual tasks and you know what we’re what we’re finding is that we’re able to drastically reduce the time that they’re spending on model documentation by automating that process and when you automate that process it also becomes you know we can also Inject more accuracy into that documentation. You you don’t have you know you’re eliminating a lot of human error there And so not only are you finding those time savings efficiencies, but you’re also upping your risk mitigation. And in places like the UK, where a lot of these chief risk officers can be held personally liable if something goes awry with a model. They’re really excited about that because they’re saying, you know, like I’m on the hook if these models underperform, misperform, or become harmful in some way, or inject bias, the list goes on. And so that’s really the value proposition that we’re bringing to the table.
Model Risk Management as a Service:
Rory Holland (10:18)
And did I hear you say a term model risk management as a service? Did I get that right? Is that a term coined by ValidMind? Is it something new?
Kevin Allen (10:24)
Correct. Yeah.
I don’t think we can take credit for coining it, but we certainly are trying to perfect it.
Rory Holland (10:36)
Yeah, Wanted to read one other thing I saw on your site. So you have something called the Advantage Partner Ecosystem. So partner with ValidMind to bring greater trust and transparency to your modeler offering our partner ecosystem, Unite startups, system integrators, risk management consultants, and enterprise model providers looking to provide AI models to small, mid-size, and large banks. So it sounds like you’ve got this ecosystem of folks that you work with.
Kevin Allen (11:04)
Absolutely, and look, we’re a startup. So the more we can partner, the more we can combine forces and go to market together with some talented partners, the better. We see it as a win-win-win with us winning, our partners winning, and the end user winning as well. So when you look at this type of program within ValidMind, we’re really looking to partner with model vendors. So those organizations that are creating models and selling those through to banks, we can come in and help validate on that side as well. Because we’re not just working with banks. So we’re slowly building that ecosystem up. And we’ve got some really exciting announcements that we’re going to be making in the coming weeks that we’re absolutely over the moon about. I can say by the time this podcast published, we will have announced our partnership with Experian, which is a commercial agreement and a reseller agreement. So they’re going to be essentially white labeling the valid mind service within their ascend platform. So providing the model documentation automation, some of our model validation automation tools, making those available for their customers within the ascend platform.
Building Trust in AI for Banking:
Rory Holland (12:25)
I’ve got to imagine with the growth of AI and all the media coverage around it, I think there’s a lot of fear. also think there’s a tremendous amount of excitement. But I think between the fear and the excitement is understanding. And I’m kind of curious how the road has been for ValidMind in educating the market on trusting the notion of AI with something so important as model creation validation.
Kevin Allen (12:30)
Yeah.
Yeah, banks are notoriously and traditionally very risk-averse, and they have to be. And when you look at the technology landscape right now, where’s the biggest risk coming from? Nine times out of 10, they’re going to probably tell you artificial intelligence poses the biggest risk to our bank, because there are so many unknowns. And so what we’re trying to do is just help those banks navigate the unknowns. A lot of them want to use generative AI and they want to use LLMs within the bank, but they don’t know how to do it. They need partners to, and when I say partners, it’s not just us. A lot of what we’re doing is integrating with existing GRC solutions and also coming in and working with those banks and their entire technology ecosystem and trying to fit seamlessly within that to hyper-focus on this one function within the bank taking a village, so to speak, to get these banks feeling comfortable with the risk associated with their use of AI.
Rory Holland (14:03)
Yeah, I’ve got to imagine the conversations I’ve had with some of the bigger banks and some on this podcast actually, where they have literally hundreds of FinTech, I’m going to use kind of air quotes, FinTech vendors that they’re exploring to try to think about how can we continue to add value for both our business and retail consumers by bringing technology to our financial institution and then how that gets fed out into the market.
Kevin Allen (14:13)
Mm-hmm.
Navigating Regulatory Challenges in AI Adoption:
Rory Holland (14:32)
and just what that process is to not only explore these, so there’s an exploratory process, then there’s an understanding of it. And then if understanding, I know that part can take a long time, but then the conversation about how we could bring it in while not disrupting our current processes. And then you add the compliance and regulatory challenges, I think, when the federal government is trying to figure out how to regulate this. I have to imagine it’s been an uphill climb.
Kevin Allen (15:00)
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. And so what you’re describing here is the exact complexity that so many of our customers are talking about right now, where they want to move quickly. They want to adopt this technology. They can’t because of resource constraints, because they have certain controls in place to prevent the use of AI. joke, before I joined ValidMind, I was at Discover, and we had, these were kind of early days of AI, but we had a group within Discover called the AI Council, and we would joke among ourselves that the job of the AI Council was to tell people not to use AI. And I think a lot of those restrictions have changed, and it’s because it’s a competitive advantage. Those banks that can find a way to get to market with AI models faster and in a compliant, safe way, have a competitive advantage over the field. And so we’re trying to help them realize that and achieve that.
Establishing Credibility in the Banking Sector:
Rory Holland (16:11)
Yep, from that standpoint, kind of curious what the reception has been. Because I think there’s from what I sense at least, there’s this concept of competitive advantage, but then there’s the lack of understanding of fear that we talked about. Like there’s a lot of education here. How have you guys been able to build credibility?
Rory Holland (16:34)
to be able to get those conversations first and then building the trust through the conversation and education. What has some of that experience been like and what advice might you give to some of the banks that might be listening to this and be interested?
Kevin Allen (16:49)
Yeah, mean, know, one of the things that really helps us is, you know, we’re not a bunch of 20 year olds in a garage. I’m not saying that a bunch of 20 year olds in the garage can’t create some great piece of financial technology, but, you know, we are, we’re a company that’s built from people who have been in the banking industry, who have sold through to banks before. We have several people on staff who are, have been practitioners as model developers, model validators and auditors. You know, one of our co-founders, Medi-S, the idea for ValidMind really came from his experience at American Express and working with lot of banks in this capacity. And he understood there’s got to be a better way than throwing these Word docs and Excel sheets back and forth. So it was really his idea that was the spark that started to…
grow into a ValidMind. And so when you talk about how are we gaining credibility, it’s through thought leadership. So me as a marketer, I’m saying, as I look across the board, as marketers, we look at what tools we have in our tool belt in a given situation to be able to tell a great story that’s going to connect with your end user and make them want to understand more, learn your product, right?
The People Behind ValidMind and Company Culture:
And so when I’ve looked across the landscape at ValidMine, our biggest asset is our people right now. I would say our platform is our signature product and it is our biggest selling point, but in terms of great resource and something that we feel like we have as a competitive advantage against others that are in our space, it’s really our people. You have the former head of responsibility AI from JP Morgan Chase. You have Medi, we have people who’ve come over from IBM like myself, DataRobot, and so we’ve got a lot of people who have been in this industry for a long time and understand software as a service, understand the banking industry, and understand model risk management backward and forward. So that’s really how we’re trying to build credibility among these tier one, tier two, and tier three banks.
Rory Holland (19:03)
And how has since you and I talked a year or so ago when you guys were trying to get off the ground and the brand was still being formulated and being formed, if you will. And then the notion of how we position and message for what we do so that we can, we do have a story to tell that story is clear. It is compelling. I’m kind of curious how that story has evolved. Now that you’ve gone to market, you’ve got some clients, you have some very successful wins. Like you mentioned,
Kevin Allen (19:09)
Mm-hmm.
Rory Holland (19:33)
with General Bank of Canada, how has the story evolved and then is there any kind of parallels with how the story’s evolved with how the product has evolved?
Kevin Allen (19:36)
Yeah, I I think the evolution of our story has really been one of, understanding what people are understanding the value that people like you know Adam at General Bank of Canada is seeing from it So Adam and Amali’s are is the CRO of General Bank of Canada So, you know understanding from him where the biggest value is coming from really, you know, it’s started to help but I you know also and just listening, you know, they part of being a great marketer is really just listening to your customer, understanding where their biggest pain points are, and we’re not trying to be more than we are, right? We’re trying, and the…we set out to serve a very specific function within the bank in what we see as a growing market. the model risk management as a service spend is estimated to be anywhere from like, think like 11 billion by 29 to 19 billion by 2034. So there’s definitely a big market here to address.
And so, what we need to do is make sure that our platform, like you mentioned, is evolving in the ways that are going to meet our customers’ needs. That starts with listening, that starts with understanding the user experience and getting in. And fortunately, we do have a lot of people who’ve worked in these functions. they know most of the features and functionality have come from within of just our own experience and understanding what’s needed to do this job down.
Rory Holland (21:29)
What would you say for folks that maybe don’t know valid mind yet, and are hearing this for the first time, what’s something or some other things that you wish more people knew about valid mind that they maybe don’t?
Kevin Allen (21:43)
Yeah, just the, you know, that’s a good one. Let me take a moment and think on that one, Rory.
One thing I really wish that people knew more about with ValidMind is just our people and their work and the incredible talent that we have in what’s a very small company. I think we’re close to 30 people now, so we’re growing rapidly, but we’re still at that startup phase. Our CEO, Jonas Jacoby, talks all the time about how critical it is for your first 30 hires in a startup.
We’re creating what we feel like is a very strong, supportive, collaborative culture, an innovative culture. When you talk about what do you wish people knew more about, I wish people were reading Christoph Herrompoli’s blog post and the papers that he’s publishing. Same with Mehdi Esmail, same with Juan Martinez, one of our machine learning engineers. We have such amazing talented people. So you know get to know the valid mind people and you’ll know why our product and our platform is poised for greatness.
Rory Holland (23:13)
Yeah, great answer. I love that. I think if more people knew and part of the genesis of this podcast was to give a platform for people that use products and services in the fintech space, whether those be consumers or businesses, to get to know the people behind the brands and then the heart for the work that they’re doing to make a positive impact. And I’ve seen that in the work that you guys are doing. Why I wanted to have you on so badly is I think the work that you’re doing is really remarkable.
Kevin Allen (23:32)
Mm-hmm.
Rory Holland (23:42)
And it’s a fairly undefined market in the sense that clear market as far as banks and financial institutions that we’re going after, but AI is so undefined and it’s ever evolving. in some ways, people that might be waiting to make decisions might be waiting for the wrong reasons. I feel because it is going to like any, any new technology you have to get in somewhere.
Kevin Allen (24:09)
Right.
Evolving Brand Recognition in Fintech:
Rory Holland (24:09)
And from some of the data that you shared related to the results you guys are generating, that’s pretty remarkable. So what is the feedback then now that you’ve got these wins under your belt? And assuming that you guys are using this as part of your marketing strategy and the story that you’re telling, how is the reception changing as you guys are evolving as a business?
Kevin Allen (24:31)
Yeah, think one thing, I’m at a conference right now in Toronto, and I joined Validmind about a year ago. I was thrown into the fire, so to speak. I think the week after I joined, I went to a model risk management conference. I knew enough about model risk management but not nearly as much as I understand now about the practice. as a marketer, you stick your hand out and shake hands and you connect with people where they are. I would say, hi, my name’s Kevin. Have you heard of ValidMind? Nine times out of 10? No, I haven’t heard of ValidMind. OK, we’re a model risk management platform. And their eyes light up. Wait. That type of thing exists. So not only was there not very much brand recognition, but there wasn’t very much recognition a year ago of the offerings that were in this space. There are a couple legacy players that we have that have what we affectionately call bolt-on solutions that aren’t really custom built for the model risk management practice within a bank. There are services that…
They may reskin or kind of try to customize for that, but they’re not purpose-built. We talk about ValidMind being purpose-built for model risk management professionals. I lost my train of thought real quick, so I’m going to pause for a second.
Rory Holland (26:14)
I’m going to bring you back anyway. But yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.
Kevin Allen (26:14)
Sorry, yeah, no problem.
Sorry, what was the original question on that one? I’m just the recognition. So.
Rory Holland (26:22)
for you.
Kevin Allen (26:28)
Flash forward a year. I’m at this conference. We not only see people who have brand awareness around ValidMind, but we also see a lot more competition showing up to these types of shows and wanting to sell through similar features and similar functionality in their products.
The Art of Improv and Its Business Applications:
Rory Holland (26:45)
Mm.
Yeah, and I’m going to take a slightly different angle because you mentioned a year ago when you got introduced to ValidMind, you came in and took the role as head of marketing. You have a pretty unique hobby and passion that not a lot of people would know about. What is that?
Kevin Allen (26:58)
Mm-hmm.
Sure, yeah. So I’m an improviser, which is an improv actor. So a lot of people, their introduction or their knowledge of improvisation, improv comedy is through whose line is it anyway, right? It’s a show that’s been on forever in the UK and the US. But I studied improvisation in Chicago, which is kind of the Mecca of improv with Second City and I.O., which is Improv Olympic there.
And, you so I still perform. You know, I had, I was a reporter, a writer, and an actor, or was trying to be in my early 20s. And then, you know, kind of, in the course of a career, you kind of migrate to what’s that term? yes, where the money is. So, I wasn’t making a ton of money as a journalist and as an actor. So, you know, one thing leads to another.
And you know I stepped into content marketing and then you know that helped me understand the broader marketing sphere went over to IBM from there, but throughout that time you know I’ve You know improvisation is something that you know keeps me has kept me fast in the way I think has helped me You know has helped spurred my create spur my creativity so I perform every weekend with Florida Studio Theatre, which is a theater House in Sarasota, Florida and it’s a phenomenal group. It’s not, you know, it’s, and a lot of times when I tell people I perform in an improv group.
You have your gamut of reactions, of course. Some people absolutely love improv. Some people are like, eh. But we do a mix of short form improv, so those improv games that you would see on Whose Line Is It Anyway. We also do longer form narrative and musical improvisation. So it’s a lot of fun. And it’s very different, obviously, from my day job. Even this, I’m not used to being in front of the camera. I’m used to working to get my colleagues in front of the camera. But it’s something that I absolutely love. It’s a phenomenal community. I’ve performed with some great people over the years. And I would say I took a long break from it after I kind of burnt out in Chicago. And then my wife and I moved to Florida.
I had known a couple people who perform in the group in Sarasota. You can almost map the acceleration of my career with getting back into it. There’s so many tenets of how improvisation is taught that apply to the business world. If people know any of the tenets of improvisation, they probably know first the idea of yes and, accepting an idea and adding on to that idea. if, you know, it’s this idea of, you know, accepting somebody’s offering. So, hey, here we are at a store and we’ve got to buy, you know, some watermelon. Yes.
And to go with that watermelon, we should probably buy some King’s Hawaiian rolls, right? So, you know, it’s that idea of, and the opposite of that would be like, hey, here we are at the store and we should buy some watermelon. We’re not at the store, we’re in a rocket ship to Mars. Now that might get a laugh from an audience if you did it, but that’s your one laugh that you’re gonna get for the entire thing, because you just denied your scene partner’s entire reality. So you apply that to a business world. We’re here, especially on the creative side, especially in the marketing side, creating a safe space, and I think about this, and I talk about this a lot as I build teams, is when you’re in that creative space, want to create a culture of yes and, where I love your idea, I love my idea, let’s build them on top of each other. there’s a saying that we have as improvisers, I like my idea, I love your idea. If everybody comes to the table with that concept in mind, you start to get some real positive thinking happening and positivity in terms of the ideas that are thrown out there and it’s a great way to spur creativity if everyone’s coming from that same mentality and that same philosophy.
Rory Holland (31:51)
Yeah, I love that. Yes, and I like my idea, but I love yours. That’s awesome. How in the world did you get into fintech? I know you were at IBM, then Discover. And how has your passion, improv, kind of play into your day to day?
Kevin Allen (32:02)
Yeah
Sure. Well, I’ll even go back and talk about my experience as a journalist. So as journalists, you’re taught to be able to go into any situation and find the story. So if I were hired at a newspaper tomorrow, they could put me on the education desk, the metro desk, the sports desk, the arts and entertainment desk.
And my process would be the same. I want to know the who, I want to know the what, I want to know the where, and I want to know the how, and I’m going to find the people that’ll get me there. And I’m not going to be afraid to ask questions. so the practical answer is I went from, when I left journalism, I went into an agency in Chicago called Imagination, phenomenal content marketing agency in Chicago by the MX group not too long ago, but a lot of great people from Imagination still working there. And then from there I was recruited to IBM and spent a little over eight years with IBM and bounced around in a few different functions on the marketing side and the content marketing side and the developer advocacy side. And then from there I was very fortunate to go and be hired at Discover Financial Services.
Discover is a phenomenal culture, really interesting work happening there. Absolutely loved my time at Discover, but while I was at IBM, I worked for a VP named Jonas Jacoby. Jonas is now the CEO of ValidMind, and in the back of my head, was like, I’ve always wanted to work in a startup environment. I’ve always wanted to feel what that autonomy was like, and having the weight of that on my shoulders. so I jumped at the opportunity when it was presented to me. So, been with Validmind for about a year and it’s been great. And so, you know, how do I use improv in my day to day? My gosh, like, eh.
Every interaction, I think, has opportunity for you to inject some of the tenets of improvisation. Whether it’s, you know, there’s even this, there’s a concept called heightening in an improv scene where, okay, let’s go back to the, you know, we’re in a grocery store, so we’ve got, we need to buy the watermelon, okay, cool, we need the king’s Hawaiian rolls.
But why? What’s the heightening? Why is that important? Well, those are mom’s favorite and it’s her birthday. Okay, so we’ve got stakes there. You’ve immediately, you’ve raised the stakes and there’s some heightening there. And yes, she’s insane about her birthday. Every year we have to outdo ourselves. Yes, or else she goes into a blind rage if we don’t. So you see how you can start to heighten those things.
Bring that concept then into a marketing scenario, we’re planning an event. Okay, well what kind of event can we logically plan for five weeks from now? Well, we could have, we could do a panel, yes, and maybe a keynote, yes. So it’s this idea of bringing in these, heightening, just the concept of heightening. There are so many ways that improv can relate back to a business world.
I would say that’s only one of the reasons why I love it. mean, honestly, just being on stage every weekend and being under pressure to come up with ideas and make a crowd laugh and connect with an audience, that’s such a gift for me to be able to do that every weekend. And it’s such a confidence boost for me where I tend to know when I go to a valid mind company outing that I’m never going to be the smartest guy in the room, but I see myself, I see a lot of my skills as a connector, as somebody who can help tell a story and can connect with an audience. I see that as invaluable and it’s really served me well in the year that I’ve been with ValidMind.
Rory Holland (36:47)
Yeah, boy, what a great story. I heard a couple of things in there that come to mind as the notion of curiosity, that being curious about how we can better engage and solve problems for the everyday people that we talk with in our business, in your case, banks and other financial institutions and having that curiosity and then having a method like yours, which is super unique. That’s why I wanted to ask you that question and bring that to light. You have a unique skillset.
Kevin Allen (36:55)
Mm-hmm.
Rory Holland (37:17)
and a passion. But the application into the work that you do and in our world, FinTech, it applies everywhere. And that curiosity is just in human relationships too. I’m super curious about why I ask the question. What makes people tick and how can we take what we’re good at and marry it up with other people and help solve problems and make the world a better place?
Kevin Allen (37:31)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, and honestly, you know, I find that journalists make unbelievably good marketers because they’re not afraid to ask questions. They’re not afraid, you know, often you know as a journalist that you’re not, you know, that you’re not the expert in it, that you’re a conduit between the expert and the, you know, the viewing or reading audience.
So journalists, or at least having a journalist mentality is a great recipe for being a strong marketer.
Rory Holland (38:18)
What would you say are some of biggest challenges you’re facing right now for this next phase of ValidMine?
Kevin Allen (38:23)
Sure. Man, where to begin? No, I think there are all great challenges and anytime you have a niche product, it makes it difficult. it would be unwise of us to buy a Super Bowl ad, for example, because at the end of the day, we’re probably not marketing to many more than 20,000 people around the globe. That’s a broad guess. I don’t know that for a fact. But there aren’t many people within banks that do model risk management. They tend to be small teams. so getting in front of them in a real meaningful way is difficult. And I think the model risk management profession or process. Programs within banks tend to be, there doesn’t tend to be uniformity in terms of where they sit. A lot of them are cost centers, so you have different areas of the business that are paying in to keep them afloat, which means that maybe they don’t own, they don’t entirely own their budget. so in working with banks through the sales process, as I’m sure many of your fintech clients can attest, is often a challenge. Challenge, but we’re patient. We feel like we have a great story to tell, a great product to share, and that patience is really paying off.
Rory Holland (39:52)
How are you getting in front of them now?
Kevin Allen (39:54)
Conferences like the one I’m attending this week is is probably our best way you know for all the for all the marketing automation tools that are out there and you know all of the kind of bells and whistles that you have to connect with people and all the great ad products that are out there I think getting in front of somebody and shaking their hand taking them dinner and walking and getting to know them a bit and you know building that relationship and showing them that that you know we’re peers you’re buying from a peer who has the same expertise that you has been really a really effective way for us. I mean it’s certainly not the only way it’s just you know for us the tried-and-true getting in front of people and shaking their hands is still you know for all the AI, for all the hype put around AI and automation these days there’s still something to be said for the ability to look a person in the eye, shake their hand and make a connection.
The Future of AI in Business:
Rory Holland (40:41)
Mm-hmm. Where do you see it going from here? mean, AI is evolving at such a rapid clip.
Kevin Allen (41:00)
Yeah, mean, where do I see it going? Well, a four-day work week, sometime soon. I think the optimist in me thinks that there’s a lot of good that it can do for humanity. And my daughter’s eight years old. And when I put ChatGPT in my daughter’s hands and Dolly in my daughter’s hands, she asked it to create a popcorn house, a house made out of popcorn. So we saw what a popcorn bed would look like in a popcorn shower and the popcorn exterior and this entire home that was generated was made of popcorn. Then I showed her how you can take that idea and bring it over to a video and create a video from scratch and do like a home tour of that. so I think there’s a lot of ways that it’s augmenting our creativity. A lot of ways that it’s saving us time. I use it every day and I don’t think I could do as much as I could as a marketing department without some of those AI tools. But for every good thing that it’s doing for us, think you can make an argument that there’s a negative. But finding that balance, finding where it works for you, and focusing on the positivity, think, is kind of where my head’s at with all of it now. But then I talk to people in the company, sometimes I have to be like, OK, let’s pump the brakes, because you’re freaking me out right now. Because they really understand where the technology is heading and sometimes it’s a little much for me to wrap my tiny brain around. I’m taking advantage of it while it’s still fun, novel, and cool to use. I also know that I also saw Terminator and The Matrix.
Rory Holland (42:50)
Thanks
Kevin Allen (43:20)
You know that always lingers in the back your head, right?
Rory Holland (43:24)
gosh, yeah, yeah. And I think it’s a kind of question, who knows? It’s accelerating at such a pace. I’m an optimistic person too, at heart. And I like to believe that so much good can come from it. And there’s always opportunities to do things that aren’t with any technology.
Partnerships and Collaborations for Growth:
Rory Holland
So, couple more questions. Challenges you’re facing you shared some of that. Any asks? Like anything that you’re looking for help on or other ways that people could help?
Kevin Allen (43:51)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I mean, you mentioned our partner program. We’re looking to partner with organizations, not just ones that are involved in model risk management, looking to be leaders in the AI space from a thought leadership perspective. So opportunities for co-sponsorship on bespoke events, things like that. Of course, we’re looking for partners who are building models and tangentially related to the governance compliance area. But that’s the big ask right now is we want to partner, we want to become more visible in the space, and we have some really impressive people with some big voices and opinions that we want to amplify.
Rory Holland (44:57)
Yeah, we’ll put some links in the show notes to your partner page and to the website. I think it’s so interesting what you guys are doing and certainly a solution and a challenge and a problem that needs to be solved. And it seems like you guys are doing some really remarkable stuff. I love your brand. I’m a little biased.
Kevin Allen (45:17)
Well, I can, I mean, you the work that we did with with customer was so critical for that time in the company and it was I think, you know, we we started working together within a few months of me coming on board to ValidMind and you know, it the work that we did together really went a long way for me personally in in understanding our brand on a deeper level, understanding the customer on a deeper deeper level and getting us to a point where we felt confident going into those tier one banks. think part of what we were trying to do from a brand perspective is just help us level up maturity-wise. And I feel like we accomplished that. When you look at us compared to other brands, feel when we go into meetings with enterprise banks, with those huge banks, we feel like we have a good solid brand and we feel very confident in the message that we’re getting across.
Rory Holland (46:27)
Yeah, and you work with some wonderful people and we’ll also put some links in if it’s okay with you to some of those articles you mentioned so folks can quickly access and read some of the positions that you guys have on the work that you’re doing in the space. Well, man, I want to thank you for hopping on the phone. I’m glad that we could do it despite your travels today. Do you still own a warm coat, warm enough to be in Toronto?
Kevin Allen (46:32)
Of course, yeah.
Yeah. me too. No, this is fun. Thanks, Roy. I do. It’s funny, I had to find this old North Face coat that I had from when I lived in Chicago. And it was one of those things where I opened it up and there was old Excedrin in the pockets and was pulling out weird receipts from Chicago restaurants and stuff from 10 years ago. But yeah, definitely has come in handy, this giant North Face coat.
And I’m bundled up with all this. And there’s a couple Canadians here who’ve been making fun of me because I look like the kid from A Christmas Story where I’m just all bundled up leaving the place. But yeah, I definitely did not bring the right shoes either because it’s really slushy and I got some suede, some suede John Varvado shoes. No big deal, no big deal.
Rory Holland (47:34)
you’re all bundled up.
Well, I really value our relationship and the partnership and I’m so excited about the great work ValidMind is doing and appreciate you making the time today.
Kevin Allen (47:57)
Yeah, thanks Rory, thanks for having me on.
