Philip Morgan, CEO of Pirum Systems on Entrepreneurial Spirit

In this episode of GlobalEdgeTalk, Alex is talking to Philip Morgan.

Philip Morgan is a Chief Executive Officer at Pirum Systems Ltd. Pirum, a secure, centralized automation and connectivity hub for global securities finance transactions based in London, United Kingdom. The company, founded in 2000, enables complete automation of the post-trade and collateral lifecycle and delivers highly innovative and flexible services. Morgan joined Pirum in 2016 as a Chief Commercial Officer and took the CEO position in 2020.

Philip Morgan achieved a Bachelor's Degree of Science in Cardiff University/ Prifysgol Caerdydd. Since then, he has worked in the domains of Sales and Finance in such companies as JPMorgan Chase & Co., Lehman Brothers, and Nomura. The experience of more than 15 years allows Morgan to hold the leadership of Pirum as they deliver the new phase of growth and give mentorship to many employees. 

Transcript

Alex Romanovich: (00:17)

Hi, this is Alex Romanovich, and welcome to GlobalEdgeTalk. Today is July 12th, 2022. And our guest is Philip Morgan, the chief executive officer at Pirum. Hello, Philip.

Philip Morgan: (00:29)

Hi there. And thanks for having me.

Alex Romanovich: (00:31)

A pleasure to have you. Our podcast is about entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs. Clearly, looking at your background and chatting with you a little bit about the company and what you've been doing, there's a lot of entrepreneurial spirit, so we will discuss that in greater detail. We're here actually in the New York City office of Pirum, the financial technology in the trading partner company. Tell us a little bit about your path to Pirum, to the CEO of Pirum. You've held a couple of positions prior to today, and would love to hear more about this venture. And then we'll talk more about your background.

Philip Morgan: (01:16)

Super well, I've been in Pirum coming up for six years. I joined as head of sales and then, after a year or two, took on responsibility for the COO as well. And then, around two and a half years ago, I took on the CEO responsibility. So yeah, I mean, Pirum is a 20-year-old company. So in terms of FinTech in the FinTech world, I guess a relatively established player. Pirum was founder-led for the first 15 years of its being. And then, I joined shortly after the founders sold some of their shares to Ross child's private equity arm. So Ross child felt there was an exciting kind of journey to be had and approached me to join Pirum, I guess, coincidentally whilst I was in my previous role at Nemira. I'd been a client of Pirum for five or six years, so I actually agreed with their view that Pirum was a great business well respected, but in many ways was the only kind of just scratching the surface of what they could offer in terms of operational risk, manage operational efficiency, risk management, and regulatory adherence.

Philip Morgan: (02:50)

So yeah, the reason I joined after a 20-old-year career in investment banking was really to kind of go back into a business where you could be truly entrepreneurial. We could grow, we could develop, we could work with clients to develop some exciting opportunities. And yeah, I guess that's what I've been trying to do for the last six years since I've been here.

Alex Romanovich: (03:20)

Speaking of your background, tell us a little bit more, going back to your early career days. Is this something you have always wanted to do? Is this something that you really wanted to invest your time in your career into?

Philip Morgan: (03:37)

Great question. Originally I'm from Wales. First of my family to kind of to go to university and the truth. The truth of the matter is I kind of fell into this world of finance more broadly after the first year of my degree. Like many students, I was in a bit of debt. I needed to kind of pay my fees and kind of debt from the year. And the truth of the matter is I went to a friend of mine who ran a recruitment agency and asked her to find me the best paid job for the summer. And she gave me three options. One was a gardener, one was a chef, and one was working in this place called a chemical bank, which I had no idea what that was.

Philip Morgan: (04:29)

But it was the best paid. So yeah, I took the six-week position, which was very low-down photocopying filing. This was 1994. And I guess to move to the end of the story, that six-week placement got extended. And then, after the summer, they offered me a full-time role, and the chemical bank merged with Chase Manhattan. Chase Manhattan merged with J.P. Morgan, and effectively that six-week photocopying job turned into our 13-year career at J.P. Morgan. So I wouldn't say it was planned at the beginning. Certainly wasn't because I guess I could have been gardening had the hourly rate been higher. But I think from the day I entered the chemical bank in the summer of 94, I was gripped by the excitement, really. Although it was an operational role, for me, it was exciting, the ability to make a difference and automate processes, et cetera. And I guess kind of, that's what I've been trying to do ever since...

Alex Romanovich: (05:40)

Fast forward to today. Here we are, sitting in the middle of Manhattan. We also have an office in London. I believe that's where your headquarters are. And you're finding yourself as a CEO of a fast-growing company in the FinTech and the financial markets right after COVID, amid the European war. What are your thoughts? What are your concerns? What are your fears?

Philip Morgan: (06:08)

Sure. Yeah, so Pirum has headquartered in London. I joined as the number 30 employee. Now we're up to 120, so we've grown reasonably well. We've gone through two changes of ownership, so we've lost Charles, sold to a company called Bomark, and recently Bomark divested half of their stake. Actually, two weeks ago to a company called HG capital, which is the largest tech investor in Europe and the fifth largest tech investor globally. So yeah, interesting times, we've developed well. As a business, we've done pretty decent kind of double-digit growth over the last six years, all done organically. So through product innovation and development. So we've gotta thank my clients for that. They've been on the journey with us, most importantly the team.

Philip Morgan: (07:14)

And I think that kind of echoes throughout my career, the team and the team approach for me is hugely important, doing things in the right way both internally and externally, and being a trusted provider of services. The one was true to their word in terms of delivery and not selling vaporware, et cetera. Has always been important to my approach. But you're absolutely right. You know, certainly the last, I took over the CEO seat two and a half years ago, and it's fair to say that those two and a half years have been relatively turbulent and volatile. But despite that, we've weathered the course pretty well and maintained growth and added new logos launched three or four products in the last two or three years.

Philip Morgan: (08:16)

So yeah, there's been tough times and, you know, clearly, from a macroeconomic perspective, with Ukraine situation plus overall, potentially moving into chop waters from recess and inflationary period. So I'm hoping the groundwork that we've done over the last 20 years, and I personally have done over the last six years, will bode well. And we'll continue to grow nicely as a business. And yeah, part of the reason I'm here in Manhattan today is our big growth area and the opportunity in North America. So historically, North America's been very small for us from a revenue perspective. It's well over 50% of the addressable market for us, yet our revenues are less than 10%. So the reason I'm here, and we've set the office up with we've currently got nine employees, is because we truly believe this is a huge area of opportunity for us. And yeah, I'm super excited to be here and push on that journey.

Alex Romanovich: (09:36)

Congratulations and your success and your expansion. Great news. So going back to COVID. Worldwide conditions, a threat of a recession, what advice would you give to fellow entrepreneurs out there globally? In terms of expansion, or maybe we should call it optimization rather than expansion.

Philip Morgan: (10:06)

That's a great question.

Philip Morgan: (10:09)

I think to be thoughtful, do things thoughtfully. However, if you believe in it, I think to go for it ultimately but do it in a well-thought-out, risk-assessed manner. I think a pyramid, in retrospect North America was such an obvious area of kind of opportunity for us that I think we should have done this years ago, but there was a kind of fear stroke, reluctance, a number of factors at pay. And I think we've done it now, and we are proven to be successful, which is fantastic. My advice to kind of fellow entrepreneurs is don't be reckless, but if you truly believe in it and you've done the groundwork and the market intelligence, and you've spoken to your clients, and if all of that is telling you it's amber to green, then go for it.

Alex Romanovich: (11:13)

Great advice. Likewise, what advice would you give yourself, Phillip, of 20 years ago if you had to do it all over again, or maybe your value system changed or something else?

Philip Morgan: (11:30)

Yeah. I think it's probably similar advice. Not coming from an environment of entrepreneurial approach or even financial markets experience. You know, my father was a steelworker. My mother worked as a kind of secretarial assistant. I think almost the first period of my career was kind of beset with being lack of confidence, listening to that inner voice suggesting you can't do it. Whereas in reality, similar to us kind of the US plan that we've had over the last couple of years, actually, once you go into it and you fully commit to something, as long as you've thought it out, and you work hard at it. Usually, it works out. Okay. The kind of advice I'd give myself, going back to when I was a 21-year-old student, would be back yourself, be confident, don't be shy, but at the same time, don't feel that good things happen to other people. You can absolutely be you, frankly. So, actually, yeah, back yourself and go for it.

Alex Romanovich: (12:58)

Philip, do you think that entrepreneurship is something you're born with. It's part of your genetic composition or almost like a bug, or do you think that this is something that can be gained and developed over time where you begin to think that you need to be more innovative. I mean, there are a lot of corporations out there probably scratching their head and saying we need to be more innovative. We need to be different. We need to differentiate ourselves and so forth. What are your thoughts on that?

Philip Morgan: (13:34)

Yeah, I'd probably speak for myself. I wouldn't say I was a naturally born entrepreneur, although I was always looking at schemes with me and my school buddies to try and make money and carve out little niches and, maybe, sell products, et cetera. And so, I always enjoyed that element of creating something and commercializing something and developing it. So I suppose it was always in me. However, from a personal perspective, I'm also quite risking adverse as well. So actually, they're kind of interested in bedfellows. So I would say the first 20 years of my career were working in a bank or a series of banks managing risk, and being quite risk-averse in some ways. And then, since joining Pirum effectively, that kind of entrepreneurial spirit that maybe was in me as a 12-year-old has kind of found it's combined with the experience that I've gained and the, hopefully, the thoughtfulness and the thoughtful approach I take to things combined with maybe some of that innate spirit that was there, has actually led me now to be a thoughtful entrepreneur, so, not a reckless risk taker, but, looking at the opportunities and weighing those up.

Philip Morgan: (15:07)

Considering return on investment and percentage, the likelihood of failure, et cetera, et cetera. And then, based upon that, making the decision. So not being an entrepreneur who just follows his gut and just makes kneejerk reactions, I guess I'm probably a thoughtful entrepreneur. If there's such a thing,

Alex Romanovich: (15:26)

Let's talk about Pirum for a second. When I read the company description, I understand automation, complete automation. I understand post-trade transactions and trading and so forth. But do you think there's an opportunity to humanize complex, difficult types of products and services in the financial services industry in other industries similar to this one? And what do you think is the future of automation in general?

Philip Morgan: (16:05)

I think it's certainly from what I've experienced. There's a huge opportunity to automate processes that many of these processes have been in place for decades. And some of the reasons for the inefficiency are due to legacy systems as a result of mergers and acquisitions where different systems have been brought together and don't necessarily speak to each other. So, a huge amount of what we do is looking to automate the human, if I can put it that way, to enable the humans to do more of the value, to do the relationship management, the business securities finance, which is the business we operate is an OTC is an over the counter activity.

Philip Morgan: (17:02)

So it is fairly complex and has many moving parts that have an ongoing life-cycle management element to it. So that's what we're looking to automate to allow the people to be more creative and entrepreneurial to build relationships, build new trades, and add value. So, certainly, there's a huge amount of digitization and digitalization opportunities in this space. And I think that's kind of across the board, frankly. We are in FinTech, but in MedTech and InsureTech, I think there's still a huge amount of inefficiency in the overall system almost, regardless of sector, which means it's available for entrepreneurs or people looking to create solutions to solve those problems.

Alex Romanovich: (18:03)

So you're going head-to-head against the home. I mean, I'm a former IBM or was involved with financial services business. Are you going again against folks like IBM Accenture and so forth because they probably offer automation solutions? Is that who you are competing against, or are you competing against the actual legacy processes or human inefficiencies, or put a thumb on this thing for us?

Philip Morgan: (18:35)

Sure, sure. And like everything there's, there's no one answer or no simple answer. And we have a number of different products, some risk management, some reg reporting, some operational efficiency, some collateral management, et cetera. And in those different areas, we often compete with different competitors, but at the same time, there are a number of situations, and I can't name the firms, but some of the firms of large tech businesses are household names. And you've just mentioned possibly a couple of them. There's increasingly an opportunity to collaborate. We collaborated with the IHS Markit. Well, now S&P is on a reporting solution. And we collaborate with some of the big collateral management providers, bank of New York and J.P. Morgan, and the EU to offer better services for our clients.

Philip Morgan: (19:39)

So yes, we do have competitors. Some of those competitors strangely can also be collaborators. So that's an approach in a trusted manner to say yes, in some things we will compete with each other and other areas, we can help each other, but ultimately help the clients. And then in other areas, we've had opportunities to move into what we call white space, under kind of supported areas or areas that aren't incumbent providers. I mean, they're fantastic for us. And we've had a couple of those in the last few years whereby we are looking to remove spreadsheets or manual processes. And there isn't a competitor at play. I mean, that's fantastic. And if you add to that, you know, regulatory tailwind where the regulators are encouraging banks to do this. That's proven to be a good driver of our growth.

Alex Romanovich: (20:48)

There are a number of entrepreneurs globally waking up thinking, I need to expand, or I'd love to expand. I'd love to do it correctly. I'd love to do it the right way. We've dedicated the entire podcast series to that. Tell us about your experiences going from London to New York and other places. What are some of the things you would've done differently? What are some of the things that you consider mistakes or successes, and what would you do differently if you had to do it all over again?

Philip Morgan: (21:26)

Wow. It's a wide range in question. I've operated globally for a number of years. I've lived in New York. I'm based in London. I lived in Moscow when I was with J.P. Morgan. So I've been fortunate to experience different cultures and practices in terms of what I wouldn't do again. I mean, again, look, I joined Lehman brothers in 2007, where I was responsible for liquidity in Europe. I mean, that was after spending 13 years at J.P. Morgan. So in terms of a decision matrix or a decision point in life, I suppose that's probably the big one that people would go. I bet you regret doing that, actually. Yeah. From a financial perspective, it was a disaster because I transferred my crude stock into Lehman stock, which doesn't have a huge value anymore.

Philip Morgan: (22:28)

However, from a, a learning perspective, it's probably the most pivotal experience in my career in terms of going through crises, managing through the crises, working with the management team at Lehman through the tricky weeks and months leading up to the September date, and then working with PWC through the liquidation for a few months. If my time came again, in early 2007, when I was presented with a really compelling opportunity at Lehman, would I take it? The answer to that is yes, I absolutely would. So I'm slightly Buddhist. I think, in a sense, they can be the worst of times over time, often those worst of times to teach you the most if you truly analyze the events and are honest with yourself.

Philip Morgan: (23:36)

I guess I don't think there are any significant missteps I feel I would've done differently. I think it all happens for a reason of life's rich tapestry, as it were. Having come into the FinTech world, I do think sometimes I wish I'd made that break earlier out of a kind of corporate bank, you know, banking into the more entrepreneurial FinTech. But then, if I look at it a different way, maybe the 20 years leading up to that taught me a lot that effectively made me successful in my role as a CEO of FinTech. So actually, maybe that's for a reason as well, but some days I wish I'd kind of made the jump earlier.

Alex Romanovich: (24:31)

Philip is parting a question, and thank you very much for being with us today. What do you think are the most important two or three traits or qualities of a global entrepreneur today with everything that we've experienced in the past? I would say 10, 15, or 20 years with your combined experiences. What are the top three things that one has to possess to be successful on the global scene?

Philip Morgan: (25:04)

Great question. Look, I think fundamentally, you have to enjoy it. You have to have a kind of zeal and want to know that it can be tough, right? Because you are running a business if you are the CEO or you're the entrepreneur. There's every day; there's a whole kind of slew of different types of challenges, et cetera. And, if that's not what you want to do, it's gonna consume you eventually. So I think having joy for it and being honest with yourself, cause it's not for everyone at the same time. There are probably a number of high-profile examples of individual entrepreneurs and geniuses as well.

Philip Morgan: (26:06)

From my perspective, and again, what has been learned over the years, is that I work much better in a team environment and being surrounded by people who can work with and collaborate with and spark off each other. Different people bring different things to the party, you know, don't underestimate the power of the team. It's a fairly obvious statement, but I truly believe in it I suppose that the third is related to which is be honest with yourself and with your team and realizing what you are good at. And probably most importantly, what you're not good at and the things that you are not good at, make sure you've got someone who is excellent at those things in your team. So I think you, you have to enjoy it. You have to build a fantastic team, and you have to be really honest with yourself about what you're good at and where you need to strengthen it. And I think if you bring those three things together, obviously combined with a killer idea, then you've probably got a decent chance of being a success.

Alex Romanovich: (27:22)

Excellent advice. Thank you so much. Phillip Morgan, CEO of Pirum, a global FinTech and automation company for the financial services industry. We thank you very much. We would like to invite you back for some future discussions and conversations, and we will include them on your landing page as part of our podcast. We'll include a number of links, maybe some pictures, maybe some background information, and so forth, but we thank you so much for being with us.