Not all entrepreneurship has to come from outside the business world. Isabel Baransky, age 30, is revolutionizing Bank of America’s FX trading System. The FX system is a machine that predicts the fluctuations of stocks and other investments. Using the FX system, Bank of America can determine if they should give someone a mortgage, allow a large loan to be taken, or advise someone to sell a stock. Under Isabel’s leadership the number of FX system transactions has increased tenfold, with mundane operations automated by this sophisticated A.I allows bankers to focus their efforts on the customers with more complex issues.
Due to her dramatic improvements to the FX system, Bank of America was promoted to associate president, then vice president of Bank of America before she turned thirty! Her FX system has proven itself so well that it is now being deployed in branches of other countries. She isn’t done yet though. She continues to work on the FX system, hoping to improve it’s precision and have the product be truly worldwide.
Isabel’s ability to innovate inside of a company is amazing. Too many people believe innovation has to be a new company or idea, but Isabel simply took an existing idea, the FX system, and improved upon it until it worked. She didn’t have to quit her day job; she found an opportunity to be an entrepreneur within her own business.
Her understanding that A.I was a legitimate field of study was also a large factor of success. Too many large businesses factor out new innovations because they don’t believe they will amount to anything. However, Isabel took A.I and ran with it, creating a tool now used in over eighty countries and is worth billions of dollars.
Overall, I feel like the lesson we can take from Isabel is that just because a business is big or old doesn’t mean you can’t find a way to innovate. It just means you have to push harder and be through in your search, and you will go far.
