Ian Watson
Ian Watson heads Celent’s global Risk practice and is based in Boston. Ian joined Celent after 20 years in the Technology Industry and consulting to Banking and Insurance clients. With Risk undergoing an enormous amount of change, it is paramount that Financial Institutions shift from traditional approaches to risk management to more robust operational resilience. Ian has a keen interest in how GRC technology builds cross-unit, holistic views of enterprise risk. Ian’s research also covers risk specific to banking and the efficiencies of 3rd party risk assessment. Prior to Celent, Ian led strategy globally for IBM Consulting and IBM Sales. Most recently, Ian helped transform IBM’s Global Sales processes and organization. He also designed the strategy for IBM’s entry into the RegTech market, and helped launch the Truata anonymization utility to help European customers reduce model risk and comply with GDPR. During his consulting career, Ian led the development of IBM's global microfinance offering that brought variable-cost, best-in-class business processes to Microfinance Institutions. Ian started his career in IBM’s Institute for Business Value, publishing research on how technology is changing the Financial Services industry. Ian has an MBA from Columbia Business School and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Columbia College. He worked for Merrill Lynch and Glencore prior to getting his MBA.
Neil Katkov
Neil is a Director in Celent's global Risk practice and is based in San Francisco. He currently focuses on the risk and compliance space including regtech, anti-money laundering and Know Your Customer compliance, financial crime, AML/KYC software including AI and transformer technology, and risk management for cryptocurrencies and digital assets. Neil initiated Celent's influential research on financial crime compliance and technology in 2002. He regularly advises leading financial institutions and technology vendors on their business, technology, and compliance strategies. His advisory engagements have included vendor selection for financial institutions, market feasibility studies for financial institutions and technology vendors, and strategic due diligence for M&A and private equity investors on a number of the leading compliance vendors. Neil has been widely quoted in the press, including The Financial Times and The Nihon Keizai Shimbun, has appeared on CNBC, CNN, and TV Tokyo, and is a popular speaker at conferences in North America, Asia, and Europe. Neil previously launched and managed Celent’s presence in Asia for 15 years and helped establish Celent’s market leading position in Japan. He holds a BA from the University of California at Berkeley and MA and PhD degrees from Harvard University. He is fluent in English, Japanese, and Chinese.