“How many of you want to be a geek?” said Victor Fetter, CIO of LPL Financial, to about 25 people during a lecture on Centennial Campus Tuesday night.
Fetter’s presentation was titled “Recognizing the Power of Technology to Unlock Value and Enable Dreams,” and during his speech, Fetter discussed emerging technologies and their applications in the world of finance.
The act of “enabling dreams,” is exactly what LPL Financial strives to do, Fetter said.
As a statement of LPL Financial’s purpose, Fetter said that LPL Financial wants to help millions of Americans through independent financial advice.
Concerning what sets LPL Financial apart from other financial consulting firms, Fetter said his company’s advisors provide experience as well as personal advice and conversation to get to know their patrons.
Much of Fetter’s presentation emphasized the adaptation of the financial world to modern technologies.
Fetter challenged those in the audience to question how popular social media applications, such as Facebook and Whatsapp, make money. He said that interesting ideas only have value when they have a practical or problem-solving application.
“Technology for technology’s sake is useless,” Fetter said. “Technology has to have an endgame in mind.”
According to Fetter, if you don’t think about the applications of a technology while creating it, then you’ve missed the mark.
Fetter said that innovation is one of the greatest challenges in his profession. He said that as CIO he implemented innovation days at the office in which workers group together to brainstorm and create ideas.
According to Fetter, his most recent innovation-day resulted in 50 new ideas for LPL Financial. Out of those 50, more than half a dozen have had patents filed, four of which are in production, according to Fetter.
Some of the new technologies Fetter has implemented at LPL Financial include remote deposit capture for investors, e-signatures and document management through cloud technology.
Fetter emphasized that, while the implementation of these technologies might be relatively simple, it has vastly improved the efficiency of LPL Financial’s relationship between advisors and investors.
Fetter has a history of encouraging innovation. Prior to joining LPL Financial, Fetter worked as CIO of Dell, working specifically in the areas of E-Commerce.
“When I got to Dell, we made changes to the Dell environment twice a year,” Fetter said. “When I left, we were making the changes four times a week.”
Fetter also spoke about what financial institutions and start-up companies are looking for when they are hiring college students.
According to Fetter, when he looks for talent, he looks for people that can lead through and with others.
Fetter joined LPL Financial in December 2012. Fetter said that his job as CIO of LPL Fianacial includes management of application engineers, data center employees, corporate security, the LPL network and product management.
According to Fetter, LPL Financial is partnered with more than 13,500 independent financial advisors and about 700 financial institutions. Fetter said the LPL Financial is the largest independent broker-dealer in the United States.
Fetter came to speak as part of the Fidelity Investments “Leadership in Technology” Speaker Series hosted by Department of Computer Science.
According to the N.C. State Computer Science website, Fetter is the 41st speaker in the Fidelity Investments “Leadership in Technology” Speaker Series, which has been taking place since 2007.
Tom Mendoza, Vice Chairman of NetApp, is the next speaker in the speaker series. Mendoza will speak at 6 p.m. in the Hunt Library Auditorium on March 25 about the topic of “Lessons Learned on the Road.”
