FDTA PitchFest

Overview

December 6, 2023, the Data Foundation hosted a virtual PitchFest, “PitchFest 2023: Unlocking the Vision of the Financial Data Transparency Act.” For this event, selected speakers had up to 10 minutes to pitch their best ideas on how to use the improved financial regulatory information and data.

Presenters had the opportunity to showcase their ideas to our panel of 3 experts and a live virtual audience. Following the event, the panel will vote on the winning pitch!

We want to tap into the art of the possible and the data communities’ creative thinking! Once implemented, the FDTA will improve efficiency and government operations, reduce compliance burden, and improve data accessibility, searchability, and comparability to the benefit of regulators, investors, companies, and society. The FDTA encourages financial regulators to harmonize data collections and standards on information already collected – moving to machine-readable forms, reducing filers’ compliance burden, increasing analytical capabilities, and enhancing transparency and accountability. The new law amends securities and banking laws to make the information reported to financial regulators, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Financial Deposit Insurance Commission, among others, electronically searchable and to further enable the development of regulatory technologies and artificial intelligence applications.

Just think! If you had access to better, reliable, comparable, and high-quality financial regulatory data, what else would be improved?

Examples could include and will not be limited to:

Pitches will be judged by a panel of experts and a virtual audience of data leaders from government, industry, and academia.

Pitches will be judged using the following criteria:

• Relevance: Does your pitch clearly identify a problem, issue, or inefficiency, and do you clearly demonstrate how the use of FDTA-related data will improve or resolve these issues and to what extent?
• Replicability: Can the solutions, ideas, calculations, etc., be replicated across organizations? To what extent?
• Feasibility: Does your pitch clearly state what the “art of the possible” means in the context of your solution or idea? What is the solution or idea dependent upon? Outside of the FDTA, how likely is it that these factors would be addressed?
• Value: Have you clearly described and demonstrated the value of your idea?

Judges

• Tom Dunlap

  Founder and Managing Partner, Diacsus Advisory and Consulting

  Tom Dunlap has over 33 years of financial services industry experience across a range of data management and operations leadership roles. Prior to DIACSUS LLC, he was Group Chief Data Officer, head of enterprise data governance, and head of data operations of the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), as well as, the site lead of the Fort Mill, SC office.

  Mr. Dunlap previously spent 18 years with Goldman Sachs in a variety of operations and data leadership roles, including Managing Director of operations and global head of the firm’s enterprise data strategy and reference data operations. In addition, he held the role of Vice President for Citibank’s Worldwide Securities Services Division. Mr. Dunlap is a member of the Financial Research Advisory Committee of the US Treasury Department’s Office of Financial Research.

• Linda Miller

  Founder & CEO, Audient Group, LLC

  Linda Miller is a nationally recognized subject matter expert and thought leader in fraud prevention and detection with over 16 years of experience. Ms. Miller has served in executive roles both in government and the private sector, including as a Partner at Guidehouse, Principal at Grant Thornton, and Deputy Executive Director of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC).

  Additionally, during her 10 years at the Government Accountability Office (GAO), she led the development of GAO’s Framework for Managing Fraud Risks in Federal Programs, which provides guidance to help federal managers in proactively preventing fraud. Prior to joining the U.S. federal government, she competed in the 2000 Olympic Games as a member of the U.S. National Rowing Team.

• Christine Tan, Ph.D.

  Director, Data Solutions, FactSet

  Christine Tan, Ph.D., is the Director of Data Solutions at FactSet and former Cofounder and Chief Research Officer of idaciti (recently acquired). At idaciti, Dr. Tan oversaw all research functions related to financial data analyses, data quality assurance, and the application of machine learning to financial and non-financial datasets. Prior to that, she was the XBRL Project Manager at the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) from 2010- 2011. At the FASB, she led the team that was responsible for updating the US GAAP Financial Reporting Taxonomy for new accounting pronouncements, common reporting practices and for ongoing taxonomy architectural developments.

  Dr. Tan was also part of the core team at XBRL US that was contracted by the SEC to design and build the XBRL US GAAP Taxonomy. She is a member of the FASB’s Taxonomy Advisory Group and the IFRS Taxonomy Consultative Group. She was also a professor in accounting at Hunter College – City University of New York and received her Ph.D. in Accounting and Finance, and a Bachelor of Commerce and Economics with First Class Honors from the University of Melbourne in Australia.

Resources:

• Financial Data Transparency Act of 2022 (FDTA) Explainer
• Research Report:Implementing the FDTA: From Data Sharing to Meaning Sharing, September 2023, Data Foundation with support from DFIN and Workiva