At a time when market volatility is reshaping client expectations and technology is driving transformative change across the industry, leaders from across the financial sector gathered at the SIFMA Operations Conference & Exhibition 2025 to reflect on the evolving relationship between the buy-side and sell-side.

The panel discussion “Bridging the Gap: Enhancing Sell-Side and Buy-Side Relationships to Optimize the Operations Experience”, moderated by Bharat Sawhney, Partner, Banking, Sia Partners, brought together senior voices from major institutions—US Bank, Fidelity, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and Nuveen—to share their perspectives on collaboration, operational resilience, and the future of artificial intelligence (AI) in finance.

Aruna Parthiban, Senior Vice President, Business & Market Solutions, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, emphasized how critical the relationship between buy-side and sell-side has become: “The value you get out of getting the network adoption, getting the voice heard between the sell-side and your custody community is vital for us to run our business in a seamless fashion.” She pointed to recent success stories like the T+1 settlement transition, which she credited to strong cross-industry coordination.

From the sell-side, Eileen Bejasa, Senior Vice President at US Bank highlighted the operational strain experienced during the early days of the pandemic—and how it catalyzed lasting changes. “The industry witnessed significant operational strains, with frequent outages and unprecedented trading volumes. That instability created challenges across the board,” she said. “Now, we’re seeing a mindset shift. It’s no longer just about stability; we’re driving value through robust infrastructure, data usage, and meeting regulatory demands.”

Laura Jacques, Vice President, Trade Operations at Fidelity, noted that collaboration needs to begin within firms before it can thrive externally. “Internally, we need to bring the conversation together between our front, middle, and back offices—not just when there’s an issue,” she said. “We can get a great execution price, but if there’s post-trade friction, that costs us money elsewhere.”

The panelists pointed to esoteric markets—like syndicated loans, private placements, and direct lending—as ripe for process innovation. “There’s still a lot of manual documentation in private markets,” said Cinda Whitten, Senior Managing Director – Head of Global Investment Operations at Nuveen. “Fintechs are emerging to help us take these document-heavy asset classes and automate them from start to finish. That’s where we have the most work to do next.”

Operational infrastructure emerged as a key theme, particularly in the face of increasing product innovation, such as direct indexing, retail SMAs, and digital assets. “We have to erase the backdrop of current infrastructure,” said Jacques. “Instead of fitting new ideas into old systems, we should ask: What are the capabilities and talent we need, and what operating model supports that?”

Parthiban added that the focus should be on scalability. “It’s about getting a unified model, where everything from front to back speaks to each other through a shared data lifecycle,” she said. She cited recent efforts by vendors to bring real-time data access into the buy side, particularly in the futures space, as positive steps forward.

But these advancements come with their own challenges. The sell- side is being asked to deliver tailored solutions while maintaining efficiency. “There’s a real tension between customization and scalability,” said Bejasa. “We’re focusing on unified client data and operational consistency, which helps us be more thoughtful in how we solution for the buy-side.”

The discussion turned toward the impact of AI, especially as firms seek to boost efficiency, mitigate risk, and better serve increasingly complex client needs. “AI isn’t new,” said Parthiban. “But right now, it’s front and center because we’re starting to see the real value. Firms are experimenting across operations—automating meeting minutes, correlating exceptions, and enhancing analysis through deeper insights.”

Jacques noted that many firms are still in the early stages, focused on low-risk internal experimentation. “We’re siloed right now,” she said. “But the industry’s beginning to align around common use cases—reconciliation, onboarding, corporate actions. These are areas where we can start to collaborate.”

Parthiban pointed to unstructured data as a key area of opportunity. “Think about syndicated bank loans wrapped in CLOs. Today, multiple people are reading and interpreting the same legal documents,” she said. “Natural language processing could extract covenants and create compliance rules automatically. That’s a powerful use case—not just for loans, but for all private credit and commercial mortgages.”

Whitten described how Nuveen is experimenting with an internal platform to unify disparate processes across 300 functions and nearly 3,500 individuals. “We’re testing AI summarization for email chains and exception workflows,” she said. “We want to evolve toward an autonomous workflow—self-improving systems that drive decision-making at scale.”

As the discussion closed, the panelists agreed that while AI is early in its implementation, the groundwork is being laid for transformational change. Collaboration—between functions, firms, and across the industry—remains the most important ingredient.

“If you start with the client, and not just the client’s expectations of me or you, but of us, you get a much more meaningful conversation,” said Parthiban. “When you work together with that mindset, the outcomes are endless.”