IPC Systems, the firm that makes 60% of trading turrets, is hiring with the times
As the saying goes, the meek will inherit the earth. Gen Z, which apparently avoids confrontations and prefers dialogue (according to a 2018 McKinsey study), might just be the generation to fulfil the prophecy – but perhaps not in the way most would expect.
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Vimal Vel thinks so, at least. Vel is the chief product officer of IPC Systems – best known as the company that produces the turrets that traders have on their desks across the world. A 2023 research report from Kimsey Consulting showed that more than 60% of the 280k trading turrets worldwide are IPC turrets.
“We have our interns in this summer,” Vel said, “and I was in a meeting. One of the things we're trying to do is look at the contracts of all the clients who are using this product and create some insights from that to drive a campaign for us.” While the team discussed the matter, an intern in the room had a different approach. “From the conversation you could quickly tell that, for them, the concept of using Claude to go through the data and extract the relevant insight was a very natural, organic thing.”
The introduction of AI-native interns is changing not just IPC’s work and processes, but also the firm’s hiring patterns. “Early career stage professionals are coming in as digital natives. So when we look for experienced professionals coming in, we look for experience working with AI,” Vel said. “We brought in AI capabilities in almost every function across the company. The most natural, logical places you'd think of, like as part of how we develop software, as part of how our legal teams operate, our sales teams - every function at IPC is touching AI.”
The capabilities and skills that Vel mentioned are IPC’s future. “As our business evolves, and we are growing, we're bringing in new leadership, and we're bringing in new profiles of people with skills that match the direction for us as a business. I've seen that in my team, I've seen that in other teams,” Vel said. “That's been a fairly consistent pattern over the past few years." And Vel’s desire for AI expertise isn’t just for interns. “I'm a product leader,” Vel said, “and one of the things I look for is if the person had experience building, commercializing products that include AI capabilities.”
The importance of AI strategy at IPC is as driven by external factors as internal ones. IPC’s turrets can integrate with a bank’s databank with all the permissions a bank mind permit (or not permit). “Almost every single client, 100% of them, have AI strategies underway. It is important that our AI strategy and their AI strategy are in harmony with each other for us to be able to effectively deliver a solution,” Vel said.
And it’s not just IPC, either. “We believe it's a secular trend across all companies going through any kind of transformation,” Vel added. “We would have been a very different business if AI had not existed. I think it's true for any company that's embraced transformation, and AI is accelerating that pace.”
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