The View from the Office.

I met up with Brad Levy, CEO of Symphony, at Pershing Square near Grand Central. We both had scrambled eggs, toast and bacon with cappuccino.

Brad started his career at Lehman in 1992 and two years later moved to Goldman, where he spent almost 18 years , rising to serve as Global Head of Principal Strategic Investments before moving to IHS Markit. He became Symphony CEO in 2021.

Our conversation was unlike any of the 100 or so meetups I’ve done for this View from the Office series in that we barely talked about his company. Instead, we covered trends in markets, business and leadership. 

Our discussion ranged from favored authors (Georgie Dickins on leadership and Alex Golbin on navigating supply chain cyber risks) to quantum physics and the emerging “triangle” of energy, tech and finance. 

Symphony was founded in 2014 by Wall Street firms including Goldman that were looking to, among other things, reduce the dominance Bloomberg had over communications.

Symphony acquired Cloud9 in 2021 and now provides a secure cloud-based platform for messaging, voice, directories, and analytics to support compliant financial collaboration. It serves over 1,300 global organizations, integrating with APIs, WhatsApp, and WeChat for workflow automation.

Some of the big ideas I took from our talk:

–The importance of the Energy–Tech–Finance triangle. These three industries will reinforce each other and anchor the global economy for decades.

–Distributed energy and nuclear power will be needed to meet the demand for power, especially from AI data centers. Countries that stuck with nuclear power programs may benefit sooner.

–The generative-AI wave is early and will be about purposeful data use, not just models.

–Data is the asset: Collateral, settlement, and risk processes are ripe for optimization if firms can harness cleaner, better-classified data.

-Quantum risk is real: Current encryption could be broken; we need a national focus akin to the Y2K effort to upgrade and safeguard our systems. 

-The drive to reach Mars will serve as a forcing function that spins off advances in medicine and materials. 

-Successful leaders have IQ (intelligence quotient), EQ (emotional quotient) and SQ (social quotient). The social component which includes building relationships and communicating is increasingly crucial.

-Re-humanizing work: After decades of screens and isolation, small in-person gatherings will matter again for creativity and resilience.

-Employment shake-up: The tech diffusion will force broad reskilling; young, motivated labor markets will have an edge.

-Mental health is a systemic risk for the next generation and needs attention alongside productivity goals.

As we talked, I found myself scribbling notes. I noticed Brad also writes down thoughts in small notebooks. “Some things,” he said, “should be kept on paper as tangible artifacts that can endure.”

You can reach Brad via LinkedIn or DM me for a warm intro.