In March 2019, a global IT services firm acquired a Dublin-founded, London-based fintech whose platform automated post-trade processing for taxes, fees, commissions, and cash flows across global financial institutions. At acquisition, the software was trusted by five of the world's eight largest investment banks. PE investors had grown the team threefold and exited at a 4.0x return with a 47% IRR.
Ninety days post-close, the team had no acquirer credentials, no standard tooling, no sprint cadence, and no communication from leadership about what integration would look like. The co-founder was the sole keeper of the legacy codebase. Brought in by the acquirer's accelerator group as integration lead: build governance and delivery systems, close the gaps, and protect the platform the banks depend on.
Single Point of Failure
The co-founding CTO was the sole keeper of the legacy codebase. All production triage ran through one person at a platform embedded in global systemically important banks.
No Product Ownership
Work was driven entirely by client contracts. Requirements moved from SOW to technical task with no strategic prioritization in between. No product owner existed.
Agile in Name Only
The team understood the philosophy but ran zero ceremonies. No sprint cadence, no grooming, no retrospectives. Whoever was loudest got prioritized.
Five Siloed Product Lines
Sales, BA, engineering, and implementation operated without a shared communication pattern across five distinct product lines. Decisions didn't travel.
No Standard Tooling
Team ran on a proprietary task system. Jira, GitHub, Slack, and Confluence. The acquirer's standard delivery stack. Had not been provisioned by day 90.
Integration Vacuum
Leadership was silent. A 30+ person team was running anxious and disengaged, with no credentials, no onboarding, and no visibility into life inside the parent company.
Full Agile Immersion
Scrum framework, sprint ceremonies, user story standards, backlog management, Definition of Done. Delivered to the entire organization across Dublin and London.
Jira from Scratch
Jira configured for five product lines. Proprietary task system mapped and migrated in parallel. No work lost in the transition.
Backlog Consolidation
Active client enhancement work reprioritized against strategic goals for the first time. Fragmented, client-reactive backlogs structured into one repeatable model.
Delivery Lifecycle
End-to-end framework designed and implemented. Replacing ad hoc contract-driven development with a repeatable, enterprise-compatible delivery system.
Tooling Provisioned
Full team roster of 30+ employees built and maintained. Parent-company credentials provisioned to close the day-90 tooling gap.
Integration Liaison
Served as the bridge across the acquired company, the acquirer's accelerator group, and the Banking and Financial Services business unit throughout.
Acquisition protected
A failed integration at a platform embedded in 5 of 8 global top-tier investment banks carries regulatory, reputational, and contractual exposure. Synova's PE exit valued the business at an implied £80 to 100M+ range.
30+ person team transformed
Every employee across engineering, BA, product, implementation, and sales trained in Agile delivery and provisioned with parent-company tooling. From zero.
5 backlogs structured into one
Fragmented, client-reactive backlogs across 5 distinct product lines structured against strategic priority and migrated into Jira from a proprietary system.
Single point of failure addressed
Technical documentation and knowledge dissemination program initiated. At a platform supporting systemic financial infrastructure, a single-person dependency is a material continuity risk.
Delivery framework stood up from zero
End-to-end lifecycle designed and implemented. Replacing ad hoc client-reactive development with a repeatable, enterprise-compatible delivery system.
€16.2M profit base defended
A disengaged, untooled team at a critical integration juncture risks client attrition. Stabilizing operations preserved the conditions for client retention through the transition.
Her contributions to coaching and training the teams left a lasting impact, resulting in the formation of a dedicated agile function within the business.