CEO Ben Chrnelich and newly appointed CTO, Cloud9 Emma Pollock discuss the evolution of the Symphony’s trader voice Cloud9 platform, why Belfast emerged as a strategic engineering hub, and how Northern Ireland talent will help shape the future of secure communications.
As organisations grapple with cybersecurity threats, regulatory demands and the rapid emergence of AI-powered workflows, secure communications have become a strategic priority rather than a back-office necessity.
For Symphony, the company behind the globally recognised Symphony Messaging platform and Cloud9 trader voice solution, that shift is creating significant opportunities for growth. It is also helping to drive investment in Belfast, where the company is expanding its engineering capabilities and deepening its commitment to Northern Ireland's technology sector.
Speaking to Sync NI, Symphony CEO Ben Chrnelich and newly appointed CTO, Cloud9 Emma Pollock outlined their vision for the business, the role Belfast will play in future product development, and why local talent is central to the company's long-term plans in solving critical communications challenges.
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Symphony's roots lie in addressing a specific challenge facing global financial markets: how to enable secure, compliant and trusted communications between organisations handling highly sensitive information.
According to Chrnelich, the company's messaging platform was built to provide a communication environment where identity verification, confidentiality and regulatory compliance were embedded from the outset.
Today, more than 500,000 users across approximately 1,300 institutions use Symphony's Messaging platform, including global banks, broker dealers, asset managers, exchanges and other financial market participants.
While its Cloud9 platform has emerged as a software-based alternative to traditional trader voice hardware systems.
"Cloud9 was developed as a software version of trader voice communication," Chrnelich explained. "What has really driven Cloud9's success is the feature set within a software environment that allows robust customisation, mobility, portability and compliance."
By moving trader communications away from fixed desk hardware and into a cloud-native environment, Cloud9 has enabled financial institutions to modernise a critical element of their technology infrastructure while maintaining the security and governance requirements demanded by the sector.
While Symphony already operates a major development centre in France, the company recognised the need for an additional engineering location capable of supporting its next phase of growth and for Chrnelich, Belfast was a familiar choice.
His connection with Northern Ireland stretches back to 2008 through Wombat Financial Software, a Belfast-founded market data technology company acquired by NYSE Technologies. Having witnessed first-hand the quality of engineering talent available in the region, he saw many parallels between Symphony's requirements and Belfast's strengths.
"We knew we needed another location," he said. "The skills we can hire in Northern Ireland are absolutely fantastic."
Beyond the available talent pool, he points to Belfast's unique position between the UK and European markets, strong connectivity with London and the wider financial services industry, and a concentration of capital markets expertise that continues to stand out internationally.
"You look at the expertise of capital markets technologists in Belfast and it really is astounding," he said. "For a city that isn't as big as New York, London, Chicago or Paris, it has an incredibly deep talent pool."
Chrnelich also highlighted the transformation he has witnessed since first visiting Belfast nearly two decades ago.
"When I think of Belfast today compared to 2008, the economy, the vibrancy of the city, the graduates, the people coming back, the level of activity and engagement has been absolutely astounding."
For Emma Pollock, Symphony represented a natural next step in a career deeply rooted in financial technology and capital markets.
Having previously worked with organisations including Wombat (after it was acquired by NYSE), Citibank and FinTrU, she brings extensive experience in delivering technology solutions for highly regulated environments.
What attracted her to Symphony was the complexity of the challenges being solved.
"As an engineer, I'm attracted to problems," she said. "I like problems that are difficult. I like problems that are real-time, where how fast you can execute your user's action really matters, and I like problems that need to be 100% compliant."
Pollock also points to Symphony's customer-centric culture as a major factor in her decision.
"What has really struck me is that there are no egos here. Everybody is focused on the customer and the problem."
As she begins building the next phase of the Cloud9 engineering organisation, her vision centres on creating an environment where engineers are encouraged to tackle difficult challenges while remaining closely connected to customer needs.
"Great engineering culture needs to be one where people feel they can tackle hard problems and not be afraid to have a go," she said. "But technology excellence has to be paired with customer focus."
Both leaders believe the demand for secure communications will accelerate as AI continues reshaping enterprise technology.
Chrnelich argues that modern business communications increasingly resemble the fast, conversational experiences people use in their personal lives, while simultaneously requiring stronger governance and security controls.
He expects organisations to move beyond traditional email workflows and adopt platforms capable of supporting both human interaction and automated processes.
"People want the ability to have automated interactions with AI agents, workflows and bots," he said. "They want analytics coming off that communication."
At the same time, the growing prevalence of cyber threats, phishing attacks and information leaks is increasing demand for trusted communication environments. As threats from bad actors increase, identity verification will become even more important as AI adoption grows. Advances in voice modelling and synthetic voice technologies will inevitably increase the need for secure voice communications across a broader range of industries beyond financial services.
Symphony's Belfast operation has already grown significantly, with the company moving into dedicated office space and continuing to expand its local workforce. The company is recruiting across a wide range of engineering disciplines, including software development, quality assurance, site reliability engineering and other technical roles. Opportunities also exist across business functions such as finance, procurement, human resources, marketing and operations.
For Pollock, one of the most important messages to prospective candidates is that career progression within Symphony is not constrained by location.
"Your trajectory is about your capability, your delivery and your contribution to the business, not capped by the fact that you're in Belfast" she said.
The company is also investing in internships and graduate programmes, working closely with Queen's University Belfast and Ulster University to develop future talent pipelines.
For aspiring engineers seeking challenging work, Chrnelich believes Symphony offers a compelling proposition.
"You get the best of both worlds," he said. "You get the culture and pace of a growth fintech organisation while working with some of the most demanding technology clients in the world."
Symphony's leadership believes that Belfast will be recognised as a critical contributor to the company's global success. For Cloud9 specifically, a key objective is expanding adoption among the world's largest financial institutions and strengthening the platform's position as a leading trader voice solution.
For Pollock, success is equally about the people and culture being built in Northern Ireland.
"How are we building our local talent pipelines? How are we building the right culture in the Belfast office?" she said. "And how do we make sure everyone remains connected to what Symphony is delivering globally and for our clients?"
If those ambitions are realised, Belfast's role within Symphony will extend far beyond a regional outpost, becoming a strategic centre helping shape the future of secure enterprise communications worldwide.
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