Curt Sigfstead is an established San Francisco Bay Area investment banker who leads west coast technology investment banking for a major financial services firm. Forward focused, Curt Sigfstead has a strong interest in mobile technologies, as well as machine learning and artificial intelligence solutions.
A recent article in CNBC examined China’s AI-enabled ambitions in the technology sphere, with the country overseeing nationally funded efforts to rapidly implement AI as a foundation of systems underpinning facial recognition, self-driving vehicles, medical diagnoses, and smart cities. With the United States still considered to be in the lead when it comes to research and development, China is also making major global investments in AI-informed areas of fintech. Accenture figures point to fintech venture investments increasing twofold in 2018 to more than $55 billion, with China making up 46 percent of that amount. At the forefront are companies such as Ant Financial, an Alibaba affiliate that operates the Alipay mobile payments app. The company offers “superapps” that have begun providing wealth management services and micro-loans that enable Chinese users to largely bypass the country's traditional banking system. With these technologies often surpassing the ability of regulators to maintain controls, a foundation is blockchain technology, as well as next-generation 5G mobile networks developed by companies such as Huawei. It remains to be seen whether the United States and other countries across the globe will respond to the competitive gauntlet laid down by China, and whether stricter regulations will hamper adoption of next generation fintech instruments.
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Responsible for driving revenue, Curt Sigfstead serves as a technology investment executive at a prominent bank in San Francisco. Also a supporter of a variety of educational institutions, Curt Sigfstead serves on the board of trustees of Shawnigan Lake School.
An independent boarding school for Grades 8-12 on Canada's West Coast, Shawnigan Lake School strives to prepare students to handle real-life challenges with maturity and thoughtfulness. With a curriculum designed to enhance students’ education beyond textbook learning, Shawnigan Lake School features a program called “Edge” that helps young people gain the leadership skills and technical skills they need to become citizens who make meaningful contributions to society. The school’s salmon hatchery allows students to gain hands-on experience raising fish, while the outdoor adventure program challenges students to face whitewater rapids, sleep in snow caves, and provide first aid to the injured. Other aspects of the school’s Edge program include an entrepreneurship activity that gives students the responsibility of running a popular restaurant and a model United Nations that allows students to explore and debate complex geopolitical issues. A financial executive with a decade of experience with JPMorgan in San Francisco, Curt Sigfstead heads the firm’s West Coast technology investment banking efforts. Curt Sigfstead has a strong interest in trends in areas such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, which are increasingly used to apply reasoning to repetitive tasks and exert major time and cost savings. A recent McKinsey Global Institute Study encompassed interviews with approximately 3,000 senior executives on areas such as AI technologies and their market impact and deployment potential. The backdrop is a world in which AI investment is accelerating quickly, with major companies such as Google and Baidu investing between $20 billion and $30 billion in 2016 alone on related R&D. With a “race for patents” at the fore, a number of major auto manufacturers, such as Tesla and BMW, are investing heavily in the machine learning and robotics interfaces that will enable driverless cars to become a commonplace reality. Toyota is currently working toward the launch of a $1 billion-funded research institute focused on driverless vehicles and the AI-underpinned robotics capacities required. Early adopters of AI also include growth companies within the financial services and communications spheres. Curt Sigfstead serves as head of West Coast technology investment banking with JPMorgan and engages with diverse corporate clients in revenue and account planning capacities. Among the areas in which Curt Sigfstead has extensive knowledge are software as a service (SaaS) and cloud and mobile technologies. With the iPhone having pioneered the concept of the apps powered by cloud connectivity a decade ago, enterprise-grade applications are now a part of many workers’ daily life. Featuring simple, user-centric interfaces, mobile apps feature ever-increasing power under the hood. The cloud is an ideal environment for hosting mobile apps for a number of reasons, including a distributed infrastructure that incorporates localized data centers that cache content in as close a proximity to on-the-move physical devices as possible. Cloud platforms also are advantageous for the way they employ lightweight APIs and XML and JSON formats, which are geared toward smaller data bursts than traditional applications and are ideal for mobile devices. In addition, because of the way mobile users transition between network connections, the traditional session-based security model is becoming outmoded. OAuth and other token-based authentication models that fill that security gap are designed specifically for cloud-based architectures. As the head of west coast technology investment banking for JPMorgan Securities, Curt Sigfstead manages technology banking teams and guides IT strategy. In addition to his current work, Curt Sigfstead advocates for Canadian technology entrepreneurship and was one of the founding members of the C100 organization. A nonprofit organization, C100 was founded to support and advance entrepreneurship and innovation in Canada. The organization, which maintains a technological focus, includes a diverse membership base of investors, corporate executives, and successful technology entrepreneurs. Together, C100’s members work to bring the best of Silicon Valley to Canada through programs such as 48 Hours in the Valley. A mentoring and networking program, 48 Hours enables up to 20 Canadian companies to learn from the best in Silicon Valley while there for two days. Over 250 alumni have participated in the program since its inception, which includes a summer and winter cohort. In addition to mentoring and networking events, program participants have access to custom workshops and individual meetings with investors. For further information, visit www.thec100.org A banking technology expert, Curt Sigfstead currently guides IT strategy for JPMorgan Securities as the head of West Coast technology investment banking. Moreover, Curt Sigfstead supports the San Francisco Marin Food Bank and serves on Shawnigan Lake School’s Board of Trustees. Located on the west coast of Canada, Shawnigan Lake School provides innovative educational programming to help mold students into future leaders. A boarding school, Shawnigan was founded in 1916 and currently maintains a 100 percent college acceptance rate among its graduates. Moreover, the school is home to nationally ranked academic programs that employ experiential learning into the curriculum. Experiential learning involves learning through real-life situations outside of the traditional classroom. Through this hands-on teaching model, students must employ critical thinking to make decisions and learn from their mistakes. Many of the programs at Shawnigan feature experiential learning components. For example, EDGE service trips involve students traveling abroad and gaining a global perspective, and an outdoors program lets students experience whitewater rapids and a fish hatchery. For additional examples of experiential learning at the school, visit www.shawnigan.ca/page/programs/experiential-learning. A community-involved San Francisco finance professional, Curt Sigfstead served on the board of the San Francisco and Marin Food Banks, a nonprofit that coordinates charitable activities with 450 partner groups in the region. Curt Sigfstead offered focused assistance as a member of the Finance & Governance and Development committees. In addition to providing daily meals to the needy, the organization organizes major annual giving events such as the Thanksgiving meal. In 2013, the Food Banks facilitated distribution of nearly 150,000 pounds of Thanksgiving food through a network of more than three dozen food pantries. This volume represented an increase of nearly 15 percent from the year before, with approximately 4,000 households in Marin County alone benefitting. Holiday deliveries consisted of frozen chickens and seasonal vegetables, beans, rice, and dessert. At the same time, large-scale lunchtime meals of turkey and trimmings were prepared at dining rooms such as St. Vincent de Paul. Thanks to the sustained contributions of food and money throughout the holiday season, the San Francisco and Marin Food Banks were able to fulfill their core mission of preventing hunger. |
AuthorA longtime resident of the San Francisco area, Curt Sigfstead contributes to numerous charitable and nonprofit institutions throughout the country. Archives
December 2019
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