Eric is a seasoned systems architect and Technology Fellow at Citi with over 28 years of experience, specializing in eTrading infrastructure. His passion for pushing technological boundaries fuels his work, where he continuously explores innovative ways to revolutionize eTrading systems. As Director of High Performance Architectures Infrastructure (HPAi), he is instrumental in driving technological advancements at Citi.

Beginning his career as a C developer for the Department of Defense, Eric progressed to aerospace R&D roles, earning top honors in Electrical Engineering. His career spans pivotal roles in networking startups and FinTech, most notably at Morgan Stanley, where he led global network instrumentation and TimeSync, and advised on strategic technology investments. Eric was honored with the title of STAC Fellow for his industry-leading contributions to Time Synchronization.

At Deutsche Bank, as a Distinguished Engineer, he architected comprehensive best in class eTrading infrastructure solutions driving down latency and improving PnL, and at a proprietary trading firm, he further honed his skills in driving technological innovation.

Eric serves on advisory boards for leading companies such as HPE, Dell, Lenovo, Equinix, AMD, Intel, Keysight, and Exegy, where he provides thought leadership, helps drive innovation and ensures alignment with Citi’s strategic objectives. He has worked extensively with companies to develop next-generation products and frequently participates in technical speaking panels at industry conferences. He is also on the A-Team Group Trading Technology Advisory Board. Renowned for his vision and expertise in low-latency technology, Eric remains committed to transforming Citi’s eTrading infrastructure into a powerful competitive advantage.

Stephen Collins is Principal Consultant at 1024tm, a boutique consulting firm that serves leading-edge networking, telecom and cloud infrastructure companies across multiple segments of the enterprise IT and service provider markets. His clients range from startups to billion-dollar businesses, with projects typically involving a mix of business and product strategy, go-to-market planning, thought leadership, product marketing, business development and sales enablement.

Stephen has a proven track record of successfully introducing innovative products into highly competitive, rapidly growing markets, and he brings clients four decades of operational experience in a wide range of executive, product management, engineering, consulting, industry analyst and advisory roles, working primarily with communications equipment manufacturers and telecom software vendors.

In recent years, as a result of numerous client engagements, Stephen has developed a specialization in network visibility, Big Data analytics, full-stack observability and the application of AI and machine learning to drive network automation and service orchestration in complex, mission-critical service provider and enterprise IT infrastructure. He has applied this expertise to a diverse range of projects in 5G network analytics (NWDAF), Open RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) xApps and rApps, SD-WAN infrastructure, Internet visibility and cloud-native infrastructure observability.

Stephen was hired out of college by AT&T Bell Labs, where he worked in software development on T-carrier data communications systems. Leaving in search of a startup opportunity, he joined multi-protocol router pioneer Wellfleet Communications as a founding engineer, where he spent a hyperactive decade in the rapid expansion of the global internetworking market. Stephen then went on to co-found Spring Tide Networks, which developed an innovative IP service switch for service provider networks, culminating in an acquisition by Lucent Technologies for $1.5 billion.

As VP of marketing at Sonus Networks and later at Acme Packet, Stephen gained experience in service provider VoIP. At Tatara Systems, he was active in the formative years of the small cells market. At Active Broadband Networks, he was involved in applying software-defined networking to the development of a Broadband Network Gateway (BNG) router based on a white box switching platform.

Stephen has been a frequent blog contributor and speaker at industry conferences, and he has authored numerous articles for industry trade publications. He holds an M.S. in Computer, Information and Control engineering from the University of Michigan and a B.S. in Computer Systems Engineering, Summa Cum Laude, from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.