Desmond Stockdale, CEO of Phi Partners, reflects on 20 years of success. Find out what he thinks has helped drive Phi forwards, how it has been able to justify its customers’ trust, and the ways it can continue to transform capital markets technology through innovation.

As Phi Partners reaches the impressive milestone of its 20th year in business, it’s unsurprising that CEO Des Stockdale feels an enormous sense of pride, especially considering where things started.

“Phi’s gone from just me sitting in a room in October 2004 with some strong opinions and big ideas to us becoming a global company with multiple Centres of Excellence and multiple lines of business,” says Des.

“We’ve become a serious player, competing with all the biggest consultancies. We’re supporting some of the world’s largest investment banks, hedge funds and asset managers, so I’m very proud of everything we’ve achieved. I’m equally proud of how we’ve retained our start-up mentality, pushing for continued growth, constantly looking ahead to how we can add even more value for our clients.”

Phi Partners’ achievements: From a one-man-band to a £60m global operation

As far as achievements go, there are plenty of examples from Phi’s 20-year history to choose from. From a single service line, the business now has nine. It has five offices globally, with additional facilities in the Americas scheduled to open next year. Revenues grew 44% between 2020 and 2023. And from humble origins, Phi expects to soon have 650 employees supporting clients across 40 countries, and to have grown its revenue to £60 million when it next submits its annual accounts.

So what’s driven Phi’s success? Undoubtedly, lots of the momentum has come from the energy and passion that Des brings to the business. “I love coming to work every day,” he states unequivocally. But he’s quick to put the spotlight on his colleagues:

“Quality is probably the most important factor, and that all comes from the people we bring on board. They’re what makes Phi Partners the business that it is. That’s why, from our graduate scheme to our sales and finance teams, right through to our most senior hires, we only recruit the best.”

Investment and culture: The cornerstones of better client outcomes

Phi’s ongoing talent drive has been supported through huge investment in the company. In the last five years, £15 million has been spent on enhancing the business, including £3.6 million already in 2024. Besides bringing in the right expertise, the investment has gone towards training; developing services, products and processes; and opening and enhancing Phi’s global hubs and Centres of Excellence.

As Des points out, “We started with Bucharest in 2008, offering Summit, front office and risk services. We repeated this success by launching Sophis services from Casablanca shortly afterwards. Adding cloud services from Sofia, and Murex services from Nicosia, we’ve proven that we can deliver genuinely expert services outside the major financial centres.”

“This year, we’ve formally launched our Quantitative Services line of business, providing model validation and model verification services directly into the front office and risk departments, and we’ve opened in Pune, to strengthen our ability to support our global client base.”

Phi has ambitious plans to add more territories and services lines in the coming years. It’s all part of the company’s commitment to providing a full, 360-degree service – offering clients full flexibility of choice on how they engage, across multiple lines of business anywhere in the world.

Yet size, scale, diverse solutions and ambition would mean little without the consistency that flows from Phi’s strong company culture. “Our culture has been central to our ongoing success,” says Des. “We’re owned by people who are actively involved in running the business. This means we can really focus on performance and performance management. We can see the value that people add and reward them accordingly. Running the business as a meritocracy helps us provide incentive.

“But at the same time, we’re like a family. We know we depend on each other, and that to reach our full potential as individuals, we’ve got to support each other as a team. This approach explains why, in 20 years of operating, we’ve never once been late on a project or incurred a penalty. I’m not sure there’s another organisation out there that can make that claim.”

Phi’s consistency is particularly impressive considering that it currently supports more than 90 clients across five continents, and, since launching in 2004, has successfully delivered more than 250 projects.

Looking ahead: How Phi will continue to disrupt, innovate and add value.

Naturally, the business has become better and stronger with every experience. But of equal importance to what can be learned from the past is how Phi applies its expertise to the future.

“We have to constantly evolve, thinking five years ahead to understand where the market’s going and adapt to make sure we continue to meet the needs of our clients.

“For example, we started out as a specialist service provider for vendor trading platforms but we are rapidly becoming better known for our work supporting clients who prefer to build their own solutions, especially in the front office and risk technology domains.

“Another area where we’ve evolved is to recognise the profound implications behind the shift to the cloud. This trend has been happening in all sorts of industries – just look at how streaming has changed TV and film – but it’s been slower to transform capital markets, partly because of regulations.

“However, at Phi, we’ve been able to innovate and get ahead of the curve by offering cloud services specifically designed for our client base – from packaged Platform-as-a-Service solutions for third party applications to bespoke, cloud-enabled front office and risk technologies.

“One of the key benefits of the cloud,” says Des, “is that it allows us to leverage automation, which unlocks incredible efficiencies on processes such as platform upgrades. And, we can provide robust FinOps that aren’t just theoretical services but that are actually implemented in ways that align with our clients’ technology management practices.” 

Across all Phi’s lines of business, Des sees ‘as-a-Service’ models as the way forward.

“The future for us lies in the evolution of traditional professional services into outcome-based delivery models where Phi takes full, long-term responsibility for a technology or function. We’ll be moving our customers on from being owners to becoming clients receiving best-in-class service.”

As with automation and ‘as-a-Service’ models, AI could also have a transformative impact for financial institutions, helping unlock greater value from their technology and data.

“AI is going to be a huge accelerator,” says Des. “At Phi, we’re looking at how AI can be used to solve specific challenges for our clients, and then packaging those solutions and bringing them to the marketplace to make the benefits of AI widely available.”

Anything’s possible: Des’s message of thanks to clients and colleagues

Des’s commitment to solving challenges for his clients is something that permeates every level of Phi Partners. It is evident in the consistency with which the business delivers and explains why Phi has followed a path of impressive growth over its first 20 years of existence.

“Our clients have been on this journey with us,” he says. “Our success has been their success and theirs ours. It’s been a mutually fantastic experience, and I can’t wait to see what the next 20 years of collaboration will bring.

“I’d like to thank all our clients, old and new, for the trust that they’ve placed in this business and for making it possible for Phi Partners to justify that trust. And to everyone who is part of the Phi family, I’d like to say thank you for making Phi the place that it is, for making this one of the best cultures in the world. If you’ve got brilliant people working together in an environment where they can thrive, anything’s possible.”