2021: The Year in WorkFusion

There’s no question that 2021 was one of the most consequential in WorkFusion history. It has been a time of powerful validation, strategizing and support, new faces, and paradigm shifts.

As we are all wont to do each December, let’s remember some of the most significant moments for our company this year.

Investment in our people, our technology, and our future

Obviously, our splashiest event was in March: Closing and announcing our latest investment round, led by our very good friends at Georgian. Of course, the importance of a cash infusion cannot be overstated, but as much we certainly appreciate the operating capital, we also treasure the trust and vision it represents for future value creation and long-term, sustained growth. We also welcomed the related media attention as an opportunity to spotlight our innovative technology, brilliant teams, and customer success goals. Certainly, one of our proudest moments!

New leadership

Another salient series of events was our executive team changing through the year. It cannot be overstated: Relationships matter. It is always bittersweet to say goodbye to trusted leaders and well-regarded colleagues, but a new vision brings new energy, ideas, and opportunities. WorkFusion welcomed CFO Brian Kyle in spring and CTO Peter Cousins in May. Chief Growth Officer Sam Fahmy took charge of our Sales organization in July.

Of course, our biggest leadership transition was Alex Lyashok handing over the CEO reins to Adam Famularo in September. (The photo at the top of this post is from his very first day, when we all were invited to Times Square in Manhattan to see messages of congratulations on the Nasdaq billboard!) To help support and carry out his vision for the future of our company and our achieving dominance in the automation software sector, Adam has brought in trusted colleagues Mariann McDonagh as CMO and Jim McGarry as COO.

And in one last tweak to the executive suite for 2021, just this month, longtime WorkFusioner Alexey Vitashkevich is stepping into the new role of Chief Customer Officer, tasked with keeping our collective focus on the most important people in our business.

Sharing customer success

Speaking of our customers, nothing makes us prouder than empowering transformations. We love sharing their success! The nature of our innovative technology is that many of our customers consider our solutions to be a secret weapon and competitive edge, so sometimes they whisper more than shout about the jaw-dropping results automation can bring to their balance sheets, team capacity, customer service ratings, and employee satisfaction surveys.

However, we were thrilled to share testimonials and other customer stories from Deutsche Bank, LPL Financial, TransUnion, Selective, and more great companies this year! We are thrilled to deepen and extend these valuable relationships, and also to create new partnerships along the way. Key among these were IBM Cloud for Financial Services and Nexis Solutions (part of LexisNexis).

Insights, education and events

Professional conferences and events were obviously still deeply affected during 2021, so like everyone else, we continued as we could, creating informational webinars and other educational opportunities with our experts.

We also made virtual appearances at several important industry events, including American Banker’s Digital Banking: AI & Automation conference, the CefPro Non-Financial Risk Leaders Convention, and the Transform Finance AML & KYC Summit (EMEA). But unlike 2020, we were very glad to be able to also attend a select few events in person, including the ACAMS conference in Las Vegas, where we hosted a standing-room-only luncheon and panel discussion (see the photo above!), and spoke on-site at the AI Summit in New York City. It was so gratifying to meet up and shake hands again!

For those looking for guidance on specific automation concepts, industry trends, and forecasts, we created several insightful infographics and white papers, including “The False Focus on STP” and “pKYC: Avert the Alerts Avalanche.”

We also actively support members of our community seeking to extend their understanding and tech skills on a more practical level. Automation Academy, our free training platform, onboarded more than 2,500 new students and granted more than 8,000 certificates of course completion. The team also added seven new courses, expanding its offerings by almost one-third, and more growth is planned next year. (Read more details in their year-end summary.)

Product innovation

Of course, all this activity rests on valuable, innovative software and services.
One specific example of forwarding movement this year: We continued to develop our federated learning technology, which lets our users share benefits and innovations while still keeping personal data completely private and safe. (Watch Paul Tepper, our head of AI, discuss this in an interview for the “Machine Meets World” podcast.)

We always appreciate industry recognition, and in 2021, independent research firms Gartner, Everest Group, HfS and Forrester, all included us very highly in rankings and vendor assessments.

• Forrester: WorkFusion named a Leader in the 2021 Forrester Wave™ for RPA
• Everest Group: WorkFusion named a Leader in 2021 IDP PEAK Matrix®
• Gartner: WorkFusion named a Visionary in the 2021 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for RPA
• Gartner: WorkFusion receives high scores in 2021 Critical Capabilities for RPA

Looking forward to 2022

We are already really excited for a calendar to turn, heralding new opportunities and potential new relationships. We hope pandemic conditions will improve worldwide and we’ll be able to meet and travel again in a way that we’ve all dearly missed. We are also eager to introduce everyone to some new business process solutions and maybe even some new (digital) coworkers.

We hope you all stay well and will celebrate the winter holidays safely with loved ones near and far. Happy New Year!