CIO: Let's talk about your background first, before we get into all the nitty-gritty SOA details. Tell us a little bit about your career. How long have you been in the business? What are some of the things you've done, some of the battles you've been in?

Stepper: I joined in '94. Before that I was at . Between Morgan Stanley, I had a brief stint at Natwest Market, when they were trying to be an investment bank. And then the past 11 years or so at Deutsche Bank. It's almost always been around equities trading; typically around derivatives, execution trading, DMA, and then recently, prime brokerage. And particularly at DB [Deutsche Bank] and Natwest, it was largely about growth.

When I joined DB, we really didn't have an investment bank per se. And as an equities division, we grew in terms of revenue by more than 15 times, and became one of the top three divisions. Prime brokerage didn't even exist eight years ago as a business, compared to Morgan and Goldman, who had been around for 30+ years. But now it's also in the top three. And so a lot of the emphasis of what we've been doing has been about growth and time-to-market, and less about building a platform for the long term. Now we're maturing as a bank, and we're absolutely ready to make that shift.

CIO: You're based in New York City?

Stepper: That's right.