OANDA’s expansion into the technological powerhouse that is California’s Silicon Valley was a poignant move for the company, aligning itself with some of the world’s most innovative leaders that drive all manner of technological advancements.
Today, LeapRate spoke to long-standing OANDA executive Natasha Lala, who has been appointed Chief of Staff at OANDA’s San Francisco Bay operations in order to ascertain her remit in ensuring that the right talent is encouraged to remain in line with the company’s focus on technologicial development.
“My role is pretty fluid and my specific initiatives will change as the industry and our business does” explained Ms. Lala, signifying the very mindset which has made so many technology start ups in California successful.
“But broadly, I’m responsible for helping coordinate strategic initiatives at the executive level globally, and very much helping establish our office in San Francisco.”
“Having a presence in the Bay Area is a real advantage in establishing business partnerships, and in keeping us on the forefront of technology. As a long-time employee of OANDA, I’m personally very excited by this step in bringing our industry expertise and unique culture to Silicon Valley” concluded Ms. Lala.
Assuming her new position, Ms. Lala brings with her substantial experience in high technology leadership within OANDA and other large multinational software companies.
Prior to her new role, Ms. Lala spent two years as Vice President of Engineering at OANDA, where she created and led the execution of OANDA’s Global Engineering Program with a budget of $15 million and staff consisting of over 100 developers, program managers and QA specialists across two locations.
Within this particular role, she was responsible for leveraging previous and extensive client-facing experience to bring customer focus to Engineering organization, as well as a diverse set of revenue-generating product releases including the all important mobile foreign exchange trading application (iOS / Android / HTML5), FIX and REST trade execution API for partners and developers, pricing, and the risk management backend.
Associated with these developments, Ms. Lala was also responsible for back office integration with payment processing systems including PayPal, Global Collect, other tier one banking partners, and maintained a very detailed knowledge of how to deploy new technology in regions with different foreign exchange regulatory environments globally including US, Canada, Europe, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong.
Prior to that, Ms. Lala served from 2003 at OANDA, being Director of Client Services, followed by Head of Project Management, before progressing to Head of Program Management, building on her understanding of infrastructure design, development and deployment that she gained at SOMA Networks and IBM.
Indeed, with twenty years of experience in large budget IT projects, Ms. Lala is well placed to ensure OANDA’s presence in Silicon Valley maintains a position at the very higher echelons of technology.