Social Impact Heroes: Why & How Simon Moss of Symphony AyasdiAI Is Helping To Change Our World

Shut the “eff” up — Just shut up and listen more: Something that I do before each meeting is open up a note pad and write “shut” on the top left-hand corner and “up” on the top right-hand corner. When I wanted to say something, I circled them. There have been times where I actually punch a corner out of the paper, because I am so desperate to say something.

As part of my series about “individuals and organizations making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Simon Moss.

Simon Moss is CEO of Symphony AyasdiAI, an enterprise AI company for financial services. He brings three decades of market-recognized business experience in financial crime, risk, and compliance, and patented leadership in financial services technology innovation in network and edge computing, cognitive analytics, machine learning and AI.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

After stumbling around the world working on a vain attempt to get a PhD, I went back to see my Mum in England. Chase Manhattan Bank had just set up operations there and I ended up working in their foreign exchange division. Afterwards, I was approached by a gentleman who was running Europe for IBM and he asked if I would join him in building a risk management business. Ultimately that brought me to New York, where I met my wife and got bitten by the entrepreneurial bug. I’ve had some great wins and a couple of failures, but each experience lead me to Ayasdi and the impressive challenge and opportunity we have as a team.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When I first got started, I lost a big number on a transaction that went the wrong way. About 3 weeks into the job, I was positive I was done for. My boss at the time took me to one side and in…