 From around the globe, it's theCUBE with digital coverage of IBM Think 2021, brought to you by IBM. Welcome back to theCUBE coverage of IBM Think 2021. I'm John Furrier, your host of theCUBE, Ricardo for lenses here with me. He's the global managing director for IBM at Citigroup. Ricardo, great to see you. Thank you for coming on theCUBE. Thanks for having me. You're the team leader for Citigroup managing director. A lot going on in the world of finance, fintech, technology, scale, transformation, all this is happening, always a leading edge indicator. Give us your perspective on the market right now on that vertical and in general, because there's so much scale, there's so much machine learning, so much going on, so much competitive advantages. Give us an overview of the industry, how you see them. So John, I've had the fortune of working essentially around the world, I've worked in Europe, in Asia, in Australia, back here in North America, and I'll tell you what, there are some dynamics that are specific to the market that are also a lot of common threads, right? A lot of common threads, right? As you know, my industry, financial service is in the middle of a great disruption, right? From payments to global wealth to understanding exactly how to reposition yourself as a startup oftentimes, looking down to be disintimidated by many of the fintechs. I have found that many financial institutions are very adept at changing the way they operate, a lot more nimble than they have been in the past, and they've found ways to incorporate a lot of techniques that some of the fintechs operate with. So they all have short tanks, they all find a way to progress investments that they get to a point of feeling fast, right? More are somewhat more adept than others, but for the most part, I'd say that everyone in the market is looking to beef out their core competencies. And you know, the financial industry has never been shy of using technology ever. They've always poured it on, they always wanted to get more edge. What's your, what is the edge now in the industry for financial and in general businesses who are learning how to be agile? What's the edge? I think the edge is really finding a way to be ambidextrous, right? Because in many respects, you do want to hold on to a franchise to guide you to a level of success. It's oftentimes it's in the case of my client, it's to do a good step for more than a hundred years, right? So you don't want to let that go, but you also want to grow a new set of skills and grow competencies that need to take me into the future. I have found that in many respects, many of my clients that are remind me of what Lou Gerson once said maybe 20 or 35 years ago, our former CEO and chairman, who said the last thing that IBM needs is a strategy. And in fact, I think that many of our financial institutions that don't need a strategy, they just need the competencies to innovate and execute its scale. And that's a lot easier said than done. Carl, I want to get your perspective before we move on to some of the initiatives and work at Citi, which is probably compelling, but I want to get your expert opinion on a question that comes up all the time with customers and that are going post pandemic and looking at growth strategies. The idea of the unit economics of their business models tend to change with more data, more digital acceleration. Is there any observations that you could share for leaders who are looking to get that financial mindset of how the business is changing with, whether it's KPIs or business models? Because at the end of the day, the financial upside of what we're seeing with digital is pretty significant. The economics seem to be a real game changer on these conversations about acceleration, but also the results are business results or money. Absolutely, John. As a matter of fact, I'll argue that while it's true that the common themes are many and that several of our financial institutions are growing a skill in approaching problems in a different fashion, it's also true that there's been a lot of redistribution of wealth across financial enterprises, right? So it's not lost on all of us, right? That if you look at market capitalization of the financial institutions around the world, they've really gotten a lot of place with clear winners in several sectors, right? In Asia and Europe as well as here in North America. So what I'd argue is that while I think we're all tired of hearing that data is the new oil, right? It's also true that we need to find the way to finally harness the power of it, right? And that's what I think IBM is a more adept at, right? I'll argue that many of the common threads that we've seen across financial institutions and back to the measures of success that you would indicate in a minute ago are really around cloud, right? Around data and around digital transformation, right? So our approach to cloud for instance is unique, right? While there are a number of very competent hyperscalers we've taken a different approach to it, right? We've taken an approach that's more gone after either highly specialized regulated workloads, right? Or gone after the layer that allows you to port applications seamlessly based on regulation, cost and competition across multiple platforms, right? So this hybrid concept has only been at the center of our cloud strategy. And that's the one that my mind is delivering our clients the greatest value. Tell you what, I think one client told me once after hearing our hybrid story that while there were many cloud providers there wasn't anyone that could help them buy as much as IBM dealing with their legacy. And you know, Candor I think it's fair to say that legacy is here to say well past our investment horizon, right? So that level of self-awareness I think ended up forming our collaborations for years to come. You know, I'm a big believer and I've reported this and certainly talked to Arvin when he was on the cube about this microservices containers, Kubernetes these kinds of new technologies really allow for legacy to integrate well into the new modern era of computing in hybrid cloud. So totally agree and that is really key tailwind for innovation and these transformations. So I have to ask you, Ricardo what's going on at Citi and IBM? Tell us, take us through some things that you're working on some of the exciting projects that you're driving. So the disclaimer is that I started this role three months ago. So I'll try to do my team proud here but what I'll tell you is that the teams you talked about are alive and well at Citi, right? So on the cloud front, we are doing exactly that we're focusing on being Citi's partner on the hybrid cloud deployment acknowledging that the hybrid cloud is an ecosystem of participants, right? Acknowledging that IBM's dominance in on-prem computing will go through a very different phase going forward. We not only are comfortable with it but we are trying to accelerate its deployment, right? So you mentioned Kubernetes, you mentioned containers hence our red hat acquisition, right? Which has been central to the collaboration that we've established at Citi and we're looking to grow. We're also going to go back to data and I will tell you that as you know Citi is in the midst of a transformation journey of their own right. He's also in the middle of a regulatory challenge that's second to none, right? With the OCC findings that then led to a fine and a remediation plan that the bank has put in place over the past two months. With that in mind, we are looking to help the bank make the most of a good crisis, right? And so we're helping for instance, Mark Sabino, the head of innovation at Citi find ways to infuse AI into their internal audit practices. Doing that is just smart business. It results in much better outcome at a lower cost and it's something that can scale because as I was saying before oftentimes our solutions have lacked the ability to scale to really keep up with client domain. Ricardo, the relationship between IBM and Citi has been long standing. I believe I read somewhere you're celebrating a hundred year partnership. Is that true? If so, I mean, it's a huge milestone. What's the, take us through the history and where this is going as a partnership. I've heard as a matter of fact, as I first came on board that in fact our companies have been at it for more than a hundred years and someone showed me an actual document a hundred years old. There was proof positive of that. So I'll tell you, I know that our firms would be at it again a hundred years from now. I will probably not be here to toast to it, but I'm certain that they will continue to collaborate and for as long as this is my responsibility I'll do whatever I can to help me continue to grow. We're only going to focus on three things. I spoke about having cloud. We really also want to be the partner is the bank transforms its operations, right? And infuse in it are AI and process formation skills and capabilities. I think if we do that, we'll continue to collaborate and we'll continue to have our partnership fully resumed. The two pillars that is always underpinned which are really innovation and trust. Great commentary, great account that you're leading probably a great team behind it. How many people are on this team? Must be pretty massive. And I'd love to see that document, by the way. Was it a memo? Was that typewritten? Was it handwritten? Was it a PO? It was a typewritten document and I get your copy. So historic. I love those historic. I love the IBM culture, longstanding relationships. Final question for you. You've been in the industry for a while. You've seen many waves of innovation. If you're talking to a customer, your friend or colleague and they had asked you, Ricardo, why is this wave so big and so important? What would you tell them? John, I think at the heart of this transformation the evolution, the wave as you call it is not the introduction of new products, the introduction of new processes, but entire new value chains that are being established by players that in many cases need each other to co-exist. This is hardly ever been the case in the past. I think IBM will form a great example of it, right? And so I do think that this is far more destructive than what we have witnessed in years past and I can't wait to get in it and to my part to lead us through it. Ricardo, great insight, totally agree. This is a time of open collaboration and ecosystem. You're seeing an ecosystem and network effect where people are integrating together in this new connected distributed economy, global economy. Thank you for coming on theCUBE. Appreciate your time. Thank you so much for having me. Okay, Ricardo, for Lenza, Global Managing Director for IBM at Citigroup. This is theCUBE coverage of IBM Think 2021. I'm John Furrier, your host. Thanks for watching.