About Zsolt

I am the founder and CEO of Step Forward. I have started the business in order to deliver the kind of white glove service we used to offer earlier in my career that the industry has moved on from in the pursuit of higher profits and larger projects. I spend my days speaking to our clients and prospects and work as a technology advisor on some projects. I am also responsible for the strategy and day to day running of the business, our various administrative functions and our philanthropy. I am a technology enthusiast and as such are very involved in the development of our software offerings and involved in some form in all of our technology projects.

Projects

During my 20+ years in the business I have worked on a number of projects I am particularly proud of. Some of my contribution at Step Forward include the following projects

Fusion Kondor Upgrade Study and Plan. See our case study on the project.

Kondor Security Integration. We will shortly publish our case study on the project and the documentation of our Kondor security service.

Development of Refinitiv to Kondor Integration. For more information, see the details on the Step Forward Integrated Digital Enterprise.

In my prior career I have delivered a number of transformation initiatives as well as countless software implementation projects.

Transformation of the professional services business of a software vendor

Integration of various software company acquisitions

Large number of software implementation projects. Many of these on Fusion Kondor and Fusion Risk or their various predecessors. Also TREP and other predecessor products.

Professional Experience

Prior to starting Step Forward, I had a long career in the financial technology space. Some of my prior roles included:

Global Head of Professional Services | Calypso Technology

Responsible for a team of 200+ consultants globally, looking after the diverse customer project portfolio of Calypso. Setting strategy and responsible for P/L and project success.

Professional Services Director Europe, Americas | Finastra

Heading up professional services for the regions. Managed up to 400 consultants across Europe and the Americas. Execution of the turn around of the business in the Americas following the acquisition of Misys by Vista Equity Partners.

Head of Professional Services | Thomson Reuters

Responsible for a portfolio of Kondor front to back, risk management and

Managing Consultant | Reuters Financial Software (Effix SA)

Effix was the original developer of the Kondor product. My role was to look after a portfolio of troubled projects across EMEA.

Business Development Manager, Implementation Consultant | Reuters

Responsible for market data, portfolio management and capital management sales as well as Fusion Kondor, application integration and market data projects.

Research Associate | Technical University of Budapest

Various technology roles around mainframe and UNIX servers, networking, emerging web technologies. Worked with the Institute of Nuclear Techniques. Taught introductory computer science course.

Technologies

I am familiar with a number of technologies widely used in the banking and capital markets space, including:

Finastra Fusion Capital and Fusion Risk

Sybase ASE, Oracle, MS SQL, Java, C++

TREP & RMDS

TOF, FIX, FPML

TIBCO RV, EMS, Active MQ

Containers, Docker

Zsolt Szalacsi

About Zsolt

Projects

Professional Experience

Technologies

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