This year’s agenda was broad – spanning AI, ESG, regulatory change and innovation – but one thread ran through nearly every conversation: the urgent need for smarter and more efficient ways to manage market data.
TRG Screen was proud to take the stage with two sessions that cut to the heart of this issue, exploring how teams can shift from reactive firefighting to strategic progress, one step at a time.
Anja Hohenacker, Director Customer Organization – Europe, and Christophe Plouvier, Product Director and AI Lead, each addressed a different piece of the modernization puzzle.
In her native German-language session, Anja challenged the idea that transformation needs to be big and complex. Drawing on personal experience – and a memorable marathon metaphor – she spoke directly to market data teams who feel stuck in survival mode.
Her message was clear and actionable: start small, but start now.
The goal isn’t transformation for its own sake. It’s about freeing up time, energy and headspace so teams can deliver greater value to the business.
That begins by tackling high-volume, low-complexity tasks – the painful, repetitive work that drains resources and delivers little return. These are precisely the areas where AI can act as an assistant, automating with minimal friction and unlocking rapid gains.
Invoice processing is a prime example: low risk, low sensitivity and high automation potential. For many teams, it’s the most obvious starting point and the smartest, clearest entry point to modernization.
Crucially, that early momentum can become the foundation for broader change, freeing up capacity that can be reinvested where it matters most. It creates space for strategy, not just survival.
This isn’t about adding more to already overloaded teams. It’s about enabling them to work smarter, think further ahead and make a bigger impact.
“The luxury,” she said, “is the simplicity. You don’t need a revolution, just a reliable first step.”
Christophe took the audience into one of the most opaque and expensive corners of the market data landscape: reference data. His session ‘Proactive Reference Data Management: From Challenge to Strategic Advantage’ was one of the best attended of the day, striking a chord with TRG Screen clients and non-clients alike.
Using real-world client stories, Christophe made the case for a more mature, proactive data-driven approach to reference data cost and usage. He illustrated how rising spend, complex licensing, fragmented systems and lack of transparency often leave market data teams in the dark – reacting after the fact, with limited ability to explain or influence outcomes.
Solutions like TRG Screen’s Xmon, he explained, which combine advanced tech with expert insights and recommendations, are helping firms move from reactive tracking to real-time insight and control – by capturing granular request data, applying rules-based monitoring, and using analytics to generate timely, actionable insights.
The payoff? It translates into hard results:
Christophe emphasized that this isn’t just about controlling spend. It’s about driving better decisions, lowering operational risk and giving teams the tools to shift from chasing costs to driving savings.
Audience engagement was strong, and the message landed: when reference data is managed proactively, it moves from black box to business driver and the payoff speaks for itself.
TRG Screen and Financial.com launched the roundtable in 2019, and it’s become a very popular part of DKF. This year’s focus was “Geopolitical Changes – Do They Affect Women's Career Opportunities?” Geopolitical changes are increasingly shaping social, economic, and political structures worldwide. Crises, conflicts, economic upheavals, and societal transformations affect not only entire economies but also individual career paths.
“For women in particular, such changes can bring both new opportunities and additional hurdles as some regions make progress in women’s and others are seeing deteriorations in career prospects for women,” explained Anja. The group examined the impact on women in the labor market and, consequently, the financial sector.
Events like DKF go beyond the content sessions. They’re about conversations and discovery. This year, the team reconnected with long-time clients, exchanged ideas with peers and explored new opportunities with vendors, partners and providers.
It was also a moment to reflect on how far the industry has come, and how far it still needs to go.
Because despite the hype around AI and automation, most firms remain bogged down by manual processes, unclear usage and legacy infrastructure. The tools to change that already exist. The question is no longer what’s possible, it’s what are we waiting for?
TRG Screen’s biggest takeaway from DKF 2025? Our collective belief that progress doesn’t have to be painful for market data teams has never been truer.
Whether it’s AI-powered invoice automation or real-time reference data optimization, the smartest teams are moving away from the status quo and toward a more scalable, strategic approach to market data management.
And for those still at the starting line: the hardest part is just getting going – but it doesn’t have to be. Just start small.