Scan, Try, Scale: Research in the Field of Technology

Maureen Olejarz Welcome to Tech on Deck podcast, brought to you by Fidelity Investments. I'm your host, Maureen Olejarz CIO of Enterprise Software Engineering, and. Adam Ely Adam Ely, Head of Digital Products and Engineering. Adam Ely Each episode takes listeners inside the walls of a fintech industry. Maureen Olejarz Anything from cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, cloud and crypto to the intersection of product and technology. Adam Ely Tech on deck breaks down the topics top of mind for technologists today. Maureen Olejarz Plus, we'll give you insight into the exciting and challenging careers in fintech. Maureen Olejarz Welcome back to another episode of Tech on Deck. I'm Maureen Ologies, Head of Software Engineering at Fidelity. Adam Ely And I'm Adam Ely, Head of Digital Products and Engineering at Fidelity. We have a great episode for you all today. We're here with Megan Kelly, head of research for Fidelity Center for Applied Technology, often abbreviated FCAT. Thankfully, because that's a lot to say. So Megan, welcome. Megan Kelley Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. Maureen Olejarz All right, so, Megan, for our listeners, we'd love to hear a little bit more about you. And we're going to talk about there's a lot of strategic work you do for the firm, but let's start with in your title, we talked about “Head of Research”. Can you tell us a little bit about what “research” means? Megan Kelley Sure. There are so many types of research happening here at Fidelity that it's confusing. I think a lot of times when people hear the word research in a role, they assume it's, you know, kind of a traditional equity research or one of the, you know, the asset management parser. There's enormous amount of research going on. We also have researchers such as behavioral economists. Megan Kelley We have I mean, it runs the gamut of people working with our customer knowledge centers and data sets. My type of research in FCAT is the kind where we're looking outside of the firm for emerging trends in both society and technology to highlight and analyze and bring in and help us all understand what it means for Fidelity and our opportunities ahead. Megan Kelley So it's a different kind. It's analysis, but it covers the outside world and how it's changing around us. Maureen Olejarz Right. And you covered this for all of Fidelity. Megan Kelley We try. Yes you do. Right, right. Yeah. For sure. So, our target audience is really the internal leadership of the firm. And our mission, we say, is to infuse strategic conversations with provocative, “outside-in” thinking. So we're looking for opportunities. Adam Ely So I, I love reading, the reports that you all put out. I think you could probably talk about that somewhere in here today. So I'll hold on that. So I am familiar with some of the stuff that you all research that comes to fruition that we get into production, but can you tell our listeners some of those things that have started off as those kind of nascent ideas y'all might have had that really we then acted upon as a firm. Megan Kelley So, I think one of the ones that you would hear about and recognize, of course, you know, early work on the emerging crypto ecosystem, that was one that's clearly continued. One that I think is particularly interesting is thinking about the space of gaming. So, if you just kind of play this out for a little bit, there are a lot of different angles on this. Megan Kelley And you might think gaming, why in the world would Fidelity be interested in gaming? Right? But it's a really rich space for understanding how people's relationships are forming in digital spaces, and how we might think about how those evolve and what kinds of dynamics are in social relationships online. So there's that whole space, and then there's a whole other idea of, as you know, we started seeing more and more stats. Megan Kelley This is a multiyear again topic. But we see start to see more and more stats about the amount of time that Americans are spending playing video games. And again, is that an assumption you hear about “Oh it's the kids. You know, they're playing Roblox or whatever”, but the stats actually play out that it's more active gamers are in the age bracket of 35 to 44 than kids. Megan Kelley So that's interesting signal in itself. We pursue that kind of try to unpack it a bit, figure out what is actually happening in this space. So that's our core kind of mission to understand who are these adults and how are they building these relationships? The second part of it is as people are playing games, they're executing transactions, they're managing portfolios of assets, right? Megan Kelley They've got whether it's like wardrobe or, skins or whatever, collectibles. And that's interesting in itself. How are people making decisions? And then lastly, in the gaming space, there is a hardware component, right? As a technologist like the engines that these things are running on in the design and in the chips that are making this all possible. Megan Kelley That's a totally interesting story that we should kind of wrap our heads around as technologists inside the firm. And a lot of the GPU work that started in the gaming space has now bled into all sorts of ways. We execute our own software in our missions. So gaming in general went from inquiry, and of course, we weren't the only ones in the firm thinking about this, but it went from inquiry in a research perspective and experimentation. Megan Kelley But we're also learning a ton on the back end about how to pull this off and what the virtual interactions look like. Adam Ely So does this mean that your team can play games during the day and get away with calling that research. Megan Kelley All the time, all the time. Adam Ely Oh that's amazing. Maureen Olejarz Well, I pick out of what you said about the signals. So there are certain signals, there are things going on in the larger marketplace and you are open. You and your teams are all open to wherever that may lead you. And there can be adjacencies to things that would be highly valuable for sure. Fidelity. Megan Kelley Oh for sure. Yeah. And I mean, it's not to say I mean, there are all sorts of interesting things happening in the world all around us, right? The task is to kind of bring it in, pull it together, try to figure out is there something that applies to the future of our industry, let alone the future of our firm. Megan Kelley And then add this “So what?” Right. So there are tons of things we could write about and think about a lot of things we kind of put on the cutting room floor because it doesn't apply to where we think we're headed, but we're really looking for the kind of seismic level impact on the industry. Maureen Olejarz So maybe let's explore a little deeper on what you've just said there, because it sounds really important. And when we talk about we'll hear sometimes within the firm, you know, “scan, try, scale”. So can you say a little bit more about that or other ways in which help with the audience, with some other examples of how you decide you know, what things ought to go further into research. Maureen Olejarz And then I think there's, you know, over time here as we're talking, there's another linkage into things, with our Fidelity Labs, where we may go try things with business units, things of that nature. So maybe we pivot there. Megan Kelley Okay. Right on. Absolutely. I would say, you know, “scan try scale” definitely drives our whole approach. And you can think about it as organizations, right. Or in FCAT where we're specifically mandated to scan and try. And sometimes we even scale versus at the firm level, we're all meant to be experimenting and thinking creatively as well. So I would say in the research process in FCAT, it ends up being a lot of, when we say “scan”, of course, we're reading secondary sources and consuming the material that's published externally. Megan Kelley We're doing a lot of talking with leading experts, and the fun about this is that a lot of the leading experts are technologists inside Fidelity. So we get to talk to our colleagues and we get to talk to our peers, and then we talk to a lot of different people in academia in particular, we have university relationships. We're talking with, you know, trying to fill out what's happening in the cutting edge, basically. Megan Kelley And that includes a whole swath of creative people. And it might not all the academics that might be people who are startup founders. We're actually building in that space. And a wide variety. And so then we bring that in, we talk about the ideas and then we have the tools. And like I said, the mandate to really start building and experimenting and not everything does go to scale. Megan Kelley And there are a lot of things we try and projects that are, you know, learning just by getting our hands onto a particular technology. And then we do have the ultimately the chance to partner with the business and or a group like Fidelity Labs and bring it to millions of customers, which is kind of the full circle, is really fulfilling way to think about it for me. Adam Ely So there's so much in there to unpack. And y'all are out there doing so much, talking to so many people about so many different things. How is your team made up? Like what kind of researchers and backgrounds? I mean, you're here with us today. I have to assume you have some technology people in that group, but what are all the the backgrounds and expertise that have to come together to make such a successful team? Megan Kelley The whole point is diversified perspectives, right? So we know we need a mix of voices and backgrounds. And yeah, we're a small team. So we have on our team, we have people with PhDs in different topics. We have people who have run machine learning teams in the industry. We have people who have studied how tech and society interact. Megan Kelley We have X journalists. We have it's a very broad mix. Right? So across FCAT at large, we have a bunch of technologists who are super deep in the field. So, like I said, we can talk with them and kind of use their expertise to inform our perspectives. And on our team we have broad generalists. And then also the kind of deep level experts on particular topics. Megan Kelley So, you know, it's it's been it's been wide and deep and you kind of fluctuate throughout your career. And then we bring in specialists. So that's that's been how we managed to keep it varied and informed. Adam Ely So Megan I, I briefly mentioned your your reports and how much I, I'm a huge fan of those reports. Honestly I look forward to them. So you have a big one that's that's coming up. Can you tell our audience a little bit about that? the purpose of that, and maybe even when it's coming out. Megan Kelley Sure. So probably the largest effort of our team over the year is putting together what we call the “Priorities Report”. And it's really our best take on the most impactful trends and technologies that we think will impact the future of our industry, like we talked about. But this is one report that collects maybe 6 to 8 different topics, that we think are the most critical to be focusing on now. Megan Kelley and they accrue over years. Of course, we're not saying that, you know, these are the only things to worry about. So we're really excited about that effort. Adam Ely Very exciting. Maureen Olejarz And I know it's something that's widely read within the firm. Certainly. Is it published externally? Is it a Fidelity only? Megan Kelley Yes. So, it's definitely one of our biggest efforts all year. And I would say, some of the more interesting topics this year, for example, we're getting into questions around how are people's digital only relationships changing? How is the future of computing going to look different with a combination of different types of hardware and yes, generative AI, of course, but how does it really weave in to the rise of supercomputers and the use of quantum? Megan Kelley how are these all going to work together? So some really tech, you know, forward thinking as well as some societal thinking. And as it happens, I'm excited to share that the priorities report that we just talked about just came out. Maureen Olejarz That's amazing. And I know internally this is much awaited every year. So it's great to see, you know, for business and technology leaders, operational leaders, it's just, you know, a nice bird's eye view right, of the industry and the trends. So yeah okay. So Megan, thank you for everything that you've shared so far. We've got an idea of the the job. Maureen Olejarz You know, how you how you all think about it, right? In terms of doing research for Fidelity. But one of the things that we like to cover with our audience is, what about your career? Right. You know, people are really interested in hearing not only what makes you come to a company like Fidelity, but what's your journey? What's your career journey been like? Megan Kelley For sure. So my, I've been here for a while, so like many of us, it's just it's a great place to grow. I've found, and I would say my journey here started well before that. I. My first job out of college was at a startup, and it was doing content streaming. It was one of the first ones to put, you know, news stories on to people's websites. Megan Kelley and the challenge there was trying to sort out, ironically, now it is still a topic of conversation, which I find so interesting algorithmically sort the incoming news stories based on content. So, for example, if you were trying to categorize a news story about a sports team that had a mascot who was an animal, you want to make sure it goes in the football category and not the nature category or something like that. Megan Kelley But when I realized what I found so interesting about it was looking around me. The most interesting people to me were the technologists, and the ones working on the content analytics system had library science degrees, which I thought was really odd because I'd never heard of the library science degree. Right. And so, so I ended up going to grad school for library science, and at the time it was, you know, search and queries and context and information retrieval challenges, which brought me into FCAT as a grad school intern in our library of all things. Megan Kelley And we still have a team who does custom research requests and can do a lot of the proprietary scanning as part of that “scan, try, scale” Maureen. so yeah, so then as I, you know, learn more and I picked up again, we talked about this kind of broad technology stories, became very interested in how social media was emerging in ways to communicate with our customers, but also with each other. Megan Kelley So here we have the freedom in many ways to pursue curiosity, which is a huge part of this role that I didn't even talk about, that you have to be curious about the future and you have to ask a questions. Megan Kelley So the other piece of that was brewing that I was really curious about was all the different startups in the fintech space that were starting to become very interesting in different ways, some prominent, some exciting. And so I focused on fintech startups as lead analyst and now I lead the research team at large. Maureen Olejarz So that's an amazing career journey and a great story of, you know, growth here in Fidelity. So thanks for sharing. Megan Kelley Absolutely. Yes. Adam Ely So, Megan, you you've talked a lot about FCAT. You know, we also have Fidelity Labs, which I think when I first came in the company, I didn't understand like the difference or the lines between them. Both great organizations now that I do know them. But could you talk to us and and our listeners a little bit, especially those looking for jobs, looking for career paths, the difference and the similarities between FCAT and Fidelity Labs? Megan Kelley For sure, so we both start with the same spirit of innovation, cutting edge, looking for the opportunities in the technology driven stories around us. I would say, Fidelity Labs is really a software incubator that's tied to building a new business in a software driven way. And in FCAT, we do a lot of that. We are also specifically mandated to be experimenting and finding the next idea for the next software driven business. Megan Kelley So we kind of span the breadth. Whereas Fidelity Labs, you're able to focus and build consumer facing or market facing product, wholly and holistically. So that's kind of the way I think about it. But we truly we collaborate all the time. And, you know, we share our research and they're great partners. Adam Ely So great. Maureen Olejarz Synergistic Megan Kelley Indeed. Indeed. Maureen Olejarz So now let's move into a little bit about talent because we'd like to, talk with our listeners on for these roles and jobs within Fidelity Investments. Right. Come in inside the walls. What do you look for? How do you think about Fidelity talent and FCAT talent? Megan Kelley So when we're out there looking for new team members, in fact, I just welcomed a new team member just this week. we're really excited about people who can come in with a point of view and have experience working with perhaps either a specific technology or exposure to a breadth of both hands-on experience and thinking about critical thinking about what we're doing. Megan Kelley And that's really helpful. And I would say the expertise comes married with ideally a spirit of experimentation and and a good team member. And you got to have fun with the people you're working with. And that's one of the best parts I think about working here is that we have really smart people and really kind people and really nice people, so that that's why a lot of us are here. Adam Ely That's it's a good reason. That's a good reason to be somewhere. Maureen Olejarz And you talked about the career path that you have for yourself. Yeah. Just that growth and being able to move into, you know, slightly adjacent roles, right. And further build your expertise. Megan Kelley Absolutely. Okay. There's a lot of mobility. There's a lot of opportunities. Maureen Olejarz So Megan, before we close out the the podcast today and we could talk for a long time, we love to just give a little bit more about, the people that we're, that we're interviewing. And so one of the things we call it our fun facts. And that can be related to work personal, but just tell us something that would get us to know you a little bit better. Megan Kelley Okay. So given the time of year, I would say that I really enjoy skiing with my family, and I feel like we're in this really sweet spot in which my kids are small enough that they want to ski with us, but they're not fast enough that they just take off and leave us. So I'm trying to enjoy this really sweet spot of timing. Megan Kelley I think it's probably brief, but, yeah, we love we love to be outside and do a lot of skiing. Maureen Olejarz That's excellent. Yeah, yeah. Beware when they when they can speak faster than you or they go by. Are you okay? Megan Kelley Oh. That's terrifying. Adam Ely So, Megan, with your background and all the stuff that you get to work on, I just have to assume that there's things you come across in your travels that you find fascinating. Given examples of that. Megan Kelley I mean, there's so many I think, that are kind of obvious and new, you know, wow, technology experiences that you have. What I also am constantly amazed by internally is all the work and the thinking and the strategy that goes into the security space. Right. And so of course, you know, obviously we do an enormous amount of work to keep the customers safe and secure, and that shows through and all the external facing sites. Megan Kelley But I've always been amazed at the expertise and the thinking that goes into the complexity behind the scenes and looking for cutting edge solutions and finding the latest technologies to enable even more protection than customers even know about. I guess what really blows me away is all the work and thinking that goes into that behind the scenes, that doesn't come immediately in the customer's face. Megan Kelley There are a lot of smart people thinking about it. Adam Ely Well, on on behalf of the cyber security team and all of those that that help with that, I will thank you for that recognition. it's a team that does a lot of hard work. Maureen Olejarz So, Megan, you know, this has been a great time talking with you here today and for our listeners. And so what we'd like to do is say, thank you very much for joining us today. it's been our pleasure. Adam Ely Yeah. Super fun. Thank you for joining us. Megan Kelley Great. Thanks for having me. Thanks for inviting me. Adam Ely Thanks for joining us for Tech on Deck. We hope you enjoyed the episode. If you haven't yet, please give us a five-star rating and subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast from. Maureen Olejarz Thank you to our listeners and recording studio and editors who make our episodes possible. To learn more about tech opportunities, head over to Tech Dot Fidelity Careers.com. Adam Ely See you next time.