This week on the Tech Leaders Intel podcast, host John Cheng sits down with Daniele Forni, Director of Credit and Lending at HSBC. Daniele is an author and subject matter expert on risk management who creates analytical solutions for a living, but he’s quite the polymath as well. The first few minutes of the conversation reveal that Daniele formed a band that he recorded albums with, moved to China to study Chinese, and earned his MBA in Economics before settling down to work with HSBC, first in regulatory reporting and then in his current area of expertise. He is truly passionate about understanding how financial institutions leverage data and how different systems connect.

Daniele credits his diverse set of interests and enthusiasm for risk analysis to his mid-life diagnosis with autism and ADHD, which has driven his life-long ability to recognize patterns and connect dots. All of which means that Daniele is always on the hunt for ways to optimize risk management. Together with John they cover a lot of ground, including:

• The crucial differences between building solutions for private clients and businesses
• How understanding data quality impacts hiring for in-demand skillsets in data
• How his autism/ADHD diagnoses helped him understand the importance of neurodiversity at work
• How neurodiversity advocacy has helped him mentor new hires
• His take on the idea that “data is never wrong”

…and of course, much much more. It is an enlightening listen, and Daniele also gives us a preview of his book on data strategy “Is It Pronounced Data or Data?” That’s available via his official website, and you can also follow him on LinkedIn.