Introduction to ISO/TC 68 Financial Services

The Chair of the International Organization for Standardization Technical Committee 68 (ISO/TC 68) and other TC 68 leaders will provide an overview of TC 68, its subcommittees, its processes, and direction.

The following persons will be speaking at this event:

Jim Northey

Chair, ISO/TC 68 Financial Services

ISO/TC 68, representing Accredited Standards Committee X9 (ASC X9) and FIX Trading Community

Jim Northey serves as the CTO of CalcGuard Technologies, Inc., an industry consortium for capital markets order routing transparency, analytics, and execution quality.  He was a Senior Vice President of Strategic Research focusing on Protocol Engineering and Standards at Itiviti Group AB, following acquisition of The LaSalle Technology Group, LLC in 2015, which he co-founded in 2006.

Mr. Northey is in his second term as the Chair of the International Organization for Standardization Technical Committee 68 (ISO/TC 68), Financial services.  He is a non-executive director of FIX Protocol Ltd.  Jim served as the Global Technical Committee Co-chair for the Americas Region until his election as an FPL director.  Mr. Northey is a past member of the Financial Research Advisory Committee of the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Financial Research; he is also a past member of the Subcommittee on High Frequency Trading of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Technology Advisory Committee. Mr. Northey previously served in the roles of FIX Americas Region Co-chair and FIX Global Derivatives Committee Co-Chair.  He was awarded the FIA Annual Achievement award in 2006 as part of the team that created FIXML for listed derivatives clearing standardization.

Mr. Northey holds a B.S. in Mathematics from the University of Indianapolis and an M.S. in Financial Markets and Trading from Illinois Institute of Technology.  He is an adjunct instructor of Finance at Michigan Technological University where he teaches courses on derivatives, financial engineering, and financial technology.  He serves on the board of the Keweenaw Financial Corporation and Superior National Bank in Michigan and is on the board of advisors for Esprow Pte. Ltd., Distributed Energy Storage Ltd, and V2G Limited. Outside of the financial services industry, Mr. Northey serves as a director of the Copper Country Angel Mission and CopperDog, Inc. nonprofits.

Karla McKenna

Convener, ISO/TC 68/AG 2 Standards Advisory Group

Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF)

Karla McKenna is an international standards specialist in the area of financial services.  Ms. McKenna is Managing Director, GLEIF Americas, as well as Head of Standards for the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation.  Ms. McKenna is responsible for the digital strategy for the LEI, concentrating on the implementation of the verifiable LEI (vLEI), facilitating the development and implementation of GLEIF standards and leveraging international standards to maximize data quality and the operational integrity of the Global LEI System.

Ms. McKenna chaired the International Organization for Standardization Technical Committee 68 (ISO/TC 68), Financial services, from 2006 to 2018 and continues ISO work in the areas of standards interoperability, regulatory use of international standards as convenor of the TC 68 Standards Advisory Group, and best practices for TC 68 standards as convenor of the TC 68 Standards Best Practices Advisory Group.

Ms. McKenna currently serves on the Board of XBRL International, is a member of the inaugural Board of the Eurofiling Foundation, Immediate Past Chair of the Securities Market Practice Group (SMPG) and also has served on the Boards of the International Securities Association for Institutional Trade Communication (ISITC) and the Accredited Standards Committee X9 (ASC X9).

Gerard Hartsink

Convener, ISO/TC 68/AG 5 Digital Currencies

NEN (The Royal Standardization Institute) and Payments Association Netherlands

Gerard Hartsink serves as Convenor of ISO/TC 68/AG 5 Digital Currencies.  He is an advisor of the European Central Bank’s Digital Euro Market Advisory Committee.

As an expert member of ISO/TC 307 Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies, Mr. Hartsink takes care of the project Technical Report (TR) 6037 Identifiers of subjects and objects for the design of blockchain systems, which is planned to be published by ISO at the latest in July 2023.  This TR provides an overview of all available identifiers (and their registers) used in the financial industry (not only relevant for DLT but also for non-DLT purposes) and used in many other industries such as for the supply chains, logistical industry, etc.

Janet Busch

Committee Manager, ISO/TC 68 Financial Services

Accredited Standards Committee X9 (ASC X9)

Janet Busch is the Director of Operations and International Standards for ASC X9.  X9 is an accredited American National Standards (ANSI) standards development organization that writes domestic standards for the United States.  X9 serves as the U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to ISO/TC 68 and its subcommittees for international standards development.  Ms. Busch serves as Committee Manager to TC 68 Financial Services and as the administrator for the U.S. TAG to TC 68.  She has worked for X9 for 17 years and in the area of standards development for 31 years.

Yuri Vlasenko

Executive Director of UkrSWIFT

Ukrainian Swift User Group Chairman