Erik Brieva: Empowering Financial Institutions with AI-Powered Banking Experience

A part of the CRIF Group, Strands is a FinTech software vendor. Founded in 2004 in Oregon (US) and Barcelona (Spain), the company initially developed personalization and recommendation solutions for the music industry that were later acquired by Apple along with a portfolio of 32 patents. Later, Strands focused its innovation efforts on the research and development of financial technologies. Today, the company develops AI-driven solutions for banks and financial institutions to strengthen customer engagement and generate new revenue through digital channels.

With headquarters in Barcelona, Strands has a strong presence in Europe, North and Latin America, and Asia and has partnerships on delivering over 700 digital banking implementations worldwide. The company capitalizes on its more than 15 years of experience in AI to develop highly-personalized digital money management solutions empowering people and businesses to manage their finances more efficiently and make smarter financial decisions in a more agile and transparent way.

In the current world scenario, Strands' mission of improving the bank-client relationship has become crucial than ever.

A Visionary Leader

Erik Brieva, CEO of Strands, is responsible for defining the company's vision and mission, the product strategy, and the market positioning. He also leads a high-performance team to execute on those premises and establishes strategic partnerships for new business development.

Over the years, Erik has created 16 successful companies, most of them belong to the software industry or digital services, including Polymita Technology, which was sold to Red Hat. Erik's zeal significantly focuses on breaking new ground and embedding into a culture of continuous innovation.

Understanding Market Demands to Become Innovative

According to Erik, business leaders must identify and be conscious of the opportunities around them, and pursue those to drive innovation. "It is essential to 'not miss the train', to dare and try your luck by working hard. Ideas always come and go, but eventually, only those who take risks developing them can transform their ideas into reality," he said.

Finally, decision-makers also need to ensure that they have a great product and a niche in the market for it. Knowing when a business project needs to change or adapt to one market or another is imperative to engage a large customer base. This applies to everything, even teamwork, to change the dynamics. Successful entrepreneurs fine-tune their products and business model until they find that niche.

AI to Bring a New Age of Banking

Erik is confident that AI is undoubtedly one of the biggest enablers of change in the financial services industry. In the last few years, this technology has made incredible progress and is now helping banks globally save on costs while changing the way they interact with their customers. From enabling frictionless onboarding to preventing payment fraud, the uses of AI in banking are far-reaching. However, its capacity to deliver a robust personalization strategy is the real game-changer in the industry. By integrating AI, financial institutions can turn every interaction with their customers into a guided and meaningful conversation, translating complex data into relevant customer insights in real-time. This sort of interaction not only results in happy customers but also impacts directly on banks' core business and bolsters return on investment.

Thus, AI helps banks know, assist, and monetize their customers from end-to-end by providing smart product recommendations targeted to those who need them most.

Adding Value to Next-Generation of Leadership

Speaking on exceptional leadership traits, Erik says leaders must feel passionate about their companies' mission and vision, and communicate it to all stakeholders in an engaging and inspiring way. Leaders need to have an instinct, creativity, tenacity, adaptability, empathy, and decisiveness to lead a successful team. It is also crucial to act according to ethics and integrity and embrace people's differences.

Exceptional Journey That Inspire Success 

Erik's entrepreneurial journey began in his birth place Cuba, a place full of creativity with a lot of necessity. To address the necessity, he ventured into the entrepreneurial universe; despite doing business was not legally allowed. When Erik was a student of Cybernetics and Mathematics at the University of Havana, he created a network to sell consumer goods as well as used his father's car to rent as a taxi in Havana.

Erik moved from Havana to London to do a Master's in Computer Graphics. Afterward, he founded his first software company, Intelligent Software Components in Barcelona that grew to 180 people within two years. Erik has also worked in large corporations such as Fnac, Jazztel, Lladró, Planeta, and Telefónica.

Charting the Future Roadmap

As a CEO, Erik focuses on forging strategic alliances to help Strands consolidate its leadership as a digital and open banking vendor. The company enables financial institutions and businesses to create value and new opportunities for consumers, empowering them to make smarter financial decisions that leads them to a lifetime quality improvement and higher productivity.

Advice to Young Executives 

Sculpting emerging business leaders, Erik advises that being resilient is essential for any entrepreneur. "Never willing to give up, keep going ahead, pivoting, and adapting to the changing circumstances possesses the ability to overcome any obstacle. In the case of failing, being able to stand up even stronger and better are crucial elements of a successful leader. Further, learning from the mistakes made and from past experiences make a leader prolific in today's competitive market.

Erik asserts that the entrepreneurial race can generate too much stress. However, it is essential to take the stress as something implicit that needs to be managed since it will be present in a company from its creation to its growth.