Matt Carbonara, managing director at Citi Ventures, will discuss the state of automation in financial services today and in the future during the Bank Automation Ignite virtual conference on April 13-14. This live discussion will launch the conference at 11:30 a.m. ET.

View the BA Ignite agenda.

Carbonara leads venture investing for Citibank’s Citi Ventures, the $2 trillion bank’s venture investment firm and incubator. He told Bank Innovation (now Bank Automation News) that he views automation in two segments: The preparation for the automation or the automation itself, and the area where the automation takes place — typically either the front or back office.

“Given all the areas of opportunity for automation and the increasing shift to digital channels in the current environment, I think front-office automation should be a key priority for financial institutions,” Carbonara said. “I would also say that one pitfall of accelerating digital practices is that many enterprises have jumped into automation without first understanding the processes that encapsulate their businesses.”

Prior to his role at Citi Ventures, Carbonara led investments and acquisitions for multinational technology conglomerate Cisco Systems, and he has also worked in an investment capacity with Comcast Ventures and TeleSoft Partners. He was previously an early employee at Terayon Communication Systems, a Sequoia and Lightspeed-backed startup that went public; there, he designed application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) before moving into product marketing and product management.

Register for the upcoming BA Ignite conference to learn how financial institutions are investing in automation amid the changing landscape of the banking industry.