Kamales Lardi

AI won't fix your organizations. It will scale the weaknesses.

I have spent more than 26 years in the technology industry, working across complex systems, large-scale platforms, and global organizations. Across industries and regions, one pattern is consistent: transformation efforts fail not because of technology, but because decision-making structures, governance models, and human behavior are not designed for change at scale.

In the AI age, this gap has become a material business risk. AI amplifies bias in systems, accelerates poor decisions, and exposes fragile leadership and operating models. What many organizations frame as an “AI challenge” is, in reality, a decision quality, governance, and organizational resilience problem.

My work focuses on neuroscience-driven transformation - applying evidence-based insights on how humans think, decide, respond to risk, and collaborate under uncertainty. Neuroscience is not a soft discipline; it is a performance lens. Organizations that understand attention, motivation, fear, and cognitive bias build better systems, make better decisions, and execute transformation more effectively.

Since founding Lardi & Partner Consulting in 2012, I have led more than 50 major transformation initiatives worldwide, including strategic programs for governments and Fortune 500 organizations. My experience spans multiple industries and exponential technologies, including artifiticial intelligence, blockchain, IoT, AR, VR and emerging digital architectures; always with a focus on measurable outcomes and long-term enterprise value.

I am the author of Artificial Intelligence for Business, a comprehensive guide to AI and its practical application in organizations, as well as the bestselling The Human Side of Digital Business Transformation. Both reflect my focus on translating complex technologies into strategic, operational, and governance decisions that deliver real business impact.

I am a recognized global voice on digital transformation and leadership, with my perspective grounded in execution, not theory, and shaped by decades of working where technology, power, and organizational reality intersect.

I work with senior leaders and boards who want to strengthen decision-making, reduce systemic risk, and build organizations that are resilient, adaptive, and fit for the AI era.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Lardi & Partner Consulting GmbH is an experienced partner in digital business transformation. We enable organizations to transform traditional customer experiences, business models and, processes and operations to meet the needs of the digital economy. Based on practical experience, we help companies drive digital transformation initiatives, from strategy to execution. We also develop robust business use cases, proof of concepts and integration plan for technology application - blockchain, artificial intelligence, AR/VR, internet of things, 3D printing, robotics, sensor / wearables, social media among others.

Efi Pylarinou

Co-Founder and author

Top Global Fintech & Tech Influencer • Trusted by Finserv & Tech Global • Content & Influencer Services • Advisory for Digital Transformation • Speaking • connect@efipylarinou.com

Seasoned, credible, and independent services for your business.
As a Top Global Fintech & Tech thought leader, continuously recognized in multiple rankings, I offer Content and Influencer services to put your leadership and activities in the spotlight.
I take on advisory roles, helping leadership stay ahead of Fintech trends in combination with their strategic objectives. 
I am also a Speaker and offer Workshops. 

𝐌𝐲 𝐒𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬

My content services enhance your content strategy and include high-quality content - articles, videos, or white papers, shared on all my social networks (close to 250,000 followers). 

My Advisory services help you keep up and stay ahead of Fintech innovations and shape your digital transformation strategy. 
 
1.	Sponsor a series of Articles or Videos.
2.	Hire me as a Speaker. Currently speaking on `Thinking like an AI native Business` or `The Future of Money & Finance`.  
3.	Workshops: On the above topics or the broader topics shaping our future in collaboration with the faculty at the Fast Future Executive program.
4.	Advisory on a retainer basis, plus project-based. 

𝐒𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 - DM me. 

𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐈 𝐚𝐦

I am a seasoned Wall Street professional and ex-academic who has become a 𝐓𝐨𝐩 𝐆𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡 & 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡 𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫.

I am a domain expert with a Ph.D. in Finance, a prolific Content creator, and a Faculty at Fast Future Executive. 

I am trusted by global Brands in Tech and Financial services (see brochure). 

I am a Top LinkedIn voice with 200,000+ LinkedIn followers. Also included in:
-	Top 50 Fintech Influencers worldwide - Favikon 
-	Top 50 Global Digital Influencers - IPFC Online
-	Top 100 Tech Influencers - Awards Magazine
-	Top 20 Swiss Linkedin creators - Favikon 
-	Top 50 Digital Futurists, Top Linkedin & Twitter Voice - Engatica 
-	Top 20 Fintech Influencers & Top 20 in ‘ Who`s Who in AI’ influencers Onalytica 

I am a contributing author in these books
o	2025 Marshall Cavendish `Branch Tomorrow`
o	2024 Wiley `Fast Future Blur`
o	2021 Springer ` Theories of Change`
o	2019 `4IR, Reinventing a Nation`
o	2018 `WealthTech` Wiley

Follow me on: 
📌 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/efipylarinou/
📌 YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/EfiPylarinou
📌 Substack https://sifintechpulse.substack.com/
📌 Medium: https://efipm.medium.com/
📌 Twitter: https://twitter.com/efipm
📌 Apple Podcasts - https://buff.ly/3oSZ4CA
📌 Spotify - https://buff.ly/3xPyWaV
📌 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/efipm
📌 TikTok - https://tiktok.com/@efiglobal?lang=en

Founder of Pylarinou Advisory

B2B content campaign services (Blogs and Video). 
My global audience is close to 200,000 followers on Linkedin and an additional 20,000+ across other platforms.  

Speaking engagements & Education - Domain expertise includes Digital Banking, Capital markets, Wealth and Asset Management, Digital Assets, and innovative ways of using advanced technologies.

🔵 Honored to join the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC) 2026 Ambassador Cohort, alongside 250+ peers across 119 jurisdictions and disciplines.

Back in 2018, at my very first Blockchain Central in Davos at the Ameron hotel, I met Sandra Ro 🇺🇦, who in March that year became CEO of GBBC. Since its launch in 2017 in Davos, GBBC, under Sandra’s leadershi,p has grown into the largest global industry association for the blockchain, digital assets, and emerging technologies community, with more than 500 institutional members and a rapidly expanding Ambassador network.

GBBC’s mission is to advance responsible adoption of blockchain and digital technologies by engaging regulators, business leaders, and global changemakers to build more secure, equitable, and sustainable societies – a mission that deeply resonates with my work.

Building bridges between traditional finance and emerging innovations has always been at the core of my Fintech journey. Joining this global Ambassador network is an opportunity to deepen those bridges and to continue connecting incumbents and innovators, policymakers and practitioners.

I am also excited to collaborate with fellow Ambassadors to amplify GBBC’s global reach, support its initiatives across standards, policy, and education, and bring forward ecosystem stories from Europe and beyond. Looking forward to contributing to this mission-driven community.

Thank you #GBBC and Sandra Ro for this honor.

You can read more about the 2026 cohort here: https://lnkd.in/eYajbsg3

#blockchain #digitalasstes #tokenization 
Alexander E. Brunner Arjun Vir Singh Xiaochen Zhang Antonis Polemitis Aaron Stanley Thomas Puschmann The Fast Future Executive Emma Joyce Beth Haddock Ronit Ghose Prof Dr Ingrid Vasiliu-Feltes

Dr. Efi Pylarinou

blockchain, digital assets, tokenization, GBBC, CBDC

🟣 Trains and planes are ideal for zooming out. 🚂 ✈️

I recorded my first reflective piece of 2026 on the way up to Davos yesterday. Sometimes you need the physical elevation to match the conceptual one.

I've been tracking infrastructure-level innovation for years, while most fintech innovation happened everywhere except at the infrastructure layer.

That's changing. Fast and messily (as expected). And what is shaping it?

                𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐲 𝐓𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬

There's a sacred triad - three forces starting to interconnect and converge. This triad is what will reshape financial services, capital markets, and, honestly, the future of the Economy and the Internet itself.

And one of them is massively under-discussed, underestimated, and underinvested.

I am drawing your attention to these points as we all zoom into specific use cases, policies, and adoption cycles.

---------
If you aren't already subscribed to `Conversations & Insights` my youtube channel, consider hitting the Subscribe and Bell button. Link below. 

Also, stay tuned for more directly from Davos over the next couple of days. 

#FinancialServices #Infrastructure #AI #Blockchain #Innovation #Davos #WEF

🔵 The State of Humanity – all in one report!

For the past 3 years at Davos, I've met with Ana Kreacic (COO of the Oliver Wyman Forum and Partner & Chief Knowledge Officer at Oliver Wyman). This year, we sat down to discuss the newly released 𝟑𝟎𝟎,𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝐕𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐓𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐔𝐬 𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐄𝐫𝐚 𝐨𝐟 𝐆𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞.

With the physical report in hand, we unpacked what 5 years of global data reveal about how humans have fundamentally changed.
A few findings that caught my attention (beyond those in the Investing section):
🔸 "On paper, people are thriving. In real life, they're running on empty."
🔸 "One-third of Gen Z said they'd prefer an AI boss" – they are not longing for a robot CEO. They are longing for the consistency, transparency, and fairness they rarely see in humans.
🔸 "For the first time in modern corporate history, five generations share the workplace and their core behaviors are not converging" (Gen Z and boomers diverge by 1.5 to 7.5x on core behaviors).
🔸 The wellness paradox: Commitment to health and fitness rose 20% but yet mental health declined 11% and physical health fell 8%. More tracking, less joy.
🔸 "64% of consumers will dump a brand after a single poor experience." Loyalty is on thin ice.

Watch our conversation.  👇

Full report link to dive deeper into the report in the comments.
#Davos #WEF2025

🔵 I watched the WEF panel "Is Tokenization the Future?" with high expectations.

Spoiler: They barely discussed tokenization.

𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐫𝐦𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠 dominated the conversation with a singular obsession: why US-regulated stablecoins should pay yield.

Sir, this was supposed to be about the future of global financial markets.

Let's be clear on a few things:
‣ 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐝. They haven't fled from JPMorgan and BofA for SoFi, Robinhood, and Chime. These fintechs pay 400x more interest on everyday money than the big banks, and yet.

Money market funds are an $8 trillion market, up 12.7% in the past year alone. Since the Fed started raising rates in March 2022, MMFs have seen a record $1.4 trillion in inflows. Access to these liquid yield options is easy. Tokenized MMFs for retail, like Franklin Templeton's Benji, are already here, and there will be more to come with all the additional efficiencies of moving RWAs on blockchain rails.

‣ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 "𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐩𝐚𝐲 𝐲𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐝" 𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐮𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭? Maybe we can rationalize that their yield is compensation for being unregulated under the Genius Act 😉. It's a risk premium  😉. And why should US regulatory policy be shaped mainly by the geopolitical panic of "we must win offshore too"? Should we go back to 2019 and apologize to Mark Zuckerberg, who made the same geopolitical arguments for LIBRA but was stopped?  Since when is China's CBDC the benchmark for US-regulated privately issued stablecoins?

‣ 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞'𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐝: USD stablecoins are not a retail Tradfi market-fit success story. They are a wholesale infrastructure success story. They are the missing layer that will enable functional tokenized markets for RWAs, institutional flows, and collateral management. That's the conversation worth having at Davos during a session titled Ìs Tokenization the Future?

Valérie Urbain (French CB) and Bill Winters (CEO Standard Chartered) understood the assignment. They spoke about market infrastructure, settlement, and the actual architecture this shift requires.

Brian? He heard "tokenization" and answered "stablecoin yield"—for 45 minutes.

Brian Armstrong: 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 '𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐘𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐝.'

Tokenization is so much bigger than stablecoins. It's a shame this panel didn't get to explore that.

Full video link in the comments

#tokenization #WEF #stablecoins

🔴 The top AI model scores 61% on financial tasks — and loses money when asked to invest.

BizFinBench.v2 just tested ChatGPT-5, Claude, Gemini, Grok, and DeepSeek on real financial workflows: credit analysis, compliance, risk assessment, asset allocation. The results should reset expectations.

📍ChatGPT-5 led the pack at 61.5% accuracy on core financial tasks. That's the best performer - still getting nearly 4 in 10 wrong on expert-level questions.

📍But here's the real story: when asked to actually allocate assets, ChatGPT-5 failed to beat a simple S&P 500 index fund. It lost money. Sharpe ratio below 1.

📍Meanwhile, DeepSeek-R1 outperformed all commercial LLMs on real-time tasks.

What this tells us:
→ "𝐀𝐈 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐬" 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐬 𝐚 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤
→ Augmentation, not replacement, remains the deployment model
→ Human oversight isn't optional - it's the strategy

The hype cycle wants autonomous AI advisors. The data says: NOT YET.

Are you seeing this gap between AI promise and performance in your organization?

📊 About the research: BizFinBench.v2 is the first large-scale benchmark grounded in authentic business data from both Chinese and U.S. equity markets. It covers 29,578 expert-level Q&A pairs across eight fundamental tasks and two online tasks, testing LLMs on what actually matters in financial services — not synthetic scenarios.

Link to paper in the comments. 

Stephen Wall Nick Rice April Rudin Olga Miler James Eagle Paolo Sironi Ron Shevlin Rupak Ghose George Aliferis Dr. Karen Wendt Linas Beliūnas Nafis Alam Paddy Ramanathan 

#LLMs #investing #AI

1st Benchmark Study for Expert-Level Financial Capabilitie

🔴 My Fintech week in Review is out, and Davos and the WEF are dominant themes. 

On my way there, I shared reflections on what I’m calling 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐲 𝐓𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐝 shaping the emerging transformation at the infrastructure layer. 

Also in this week’s edition:
• Highlights from the extensive Oliver Wyman report surveying 300,000 voices
• Why a WEF panel on tokenization barely discussed tokenization. 
• In depth research from US and China equity markets, showing that AI still fails the financial reality test - the top model scored 61.5% on real workflows and lost money when asked to invest.

This was a video-heavy week with real-time reflections from the ground.

And don’t miss my Friday Agentic AI newsletter - using GenAI and Agentic AI combined with my curation to keep you current on how AI is shaping financial services: regulation, investments, use cases, deployments, and research. Weekly so you don’t have to track it daily.

#Fintech #AI #Davos #WEF #AgenticAI #Banking

AI Still Fails the Financial Reality Test The top AI model scored just 61.5% on real financial workflows — and lost money when asked to invest. Benchm

Open article: Fintech Week in Review: Davos WEF Insights, AI Reality Check, The Holy Triad, State of Humanity, Tokenization, Agentic Commerce by Dr. Efi Pylarinou • 2 min read

Fintech Week in Review: Davos WEF Insights, AI Reality Check, The Holy Triad, State of Humanity, Tokenization, Agentic Commerce

🔴 Payment rails for AI agents are being built and integrated. Stripe’s Agentic Commerce Protocol expanded in EMEA through integrations that will eventually enable purchases to happen inside AI interfaces, not checkout pages.

Welcome to the 33nd edition of the Agentic AI Newsletter for Financial Services!

A weekly edition with the essential intelligence on the AI-powered transformation of Financial Services. AI agents are working tirelessly 24/7 to curate global news and articles, which are enhanced with my human insights.

This week’s key developments:
1️⃣ Stripe’s ACP launches with EMEA partners, including Fortune 500 Insight Enterprises Inc. – agent-initiated purchases are now production-ready
2️⃣ PNC reports 30 points of operating leverage from automation – with 171 opportunities worth $1.4B in addressable spend
3️⃣ Brex eliminates 10,000+ hours through AI-native continuous accounting – month-end closes become continuous ledger hygiene
4️⃣ Record $230M seed funds AI-native Islamic digital bank Mal – targeting the $7T underserved market
5️⃣ Woori Financial Group (one of Korea’s Big Four) declares “we are an AI company” – plans 344 use cases
6️⃣ Research reveals LLM trading vulnerability – adversarial headlines can cost 18% annual returns

Which development matters most for your organization? 👇

#fintech #AI #agentic

Welcome to Agentic Newsletter for Financial Services—the first newsletter dedicated to the transformation in financial services driven by the advancem

Open article: Stripe's ACP Scales Through New Integrations While PNC Reports 30 Points of AI-Driven Leverage by Dr. Efi Pylarinou • 5 min read

Stripe's ACP Scales Through New Integrations While PNC Reports 30 Points of AI-Driven Leverage

🔵  Trump just named his Fed Chair pick. The financial services implications go far beyond rate policy.

Kevin Warsh will succeed Jerome Powell in May, pending Senate confirmation.

What caught my attention: A 2024 interview (Letter #230 by Kevin Gee "A Letter a Day"), now circulating on X, where Warsh argued that Fed policy has been "good for asset holders" while "taking risks with the paychecks" of W2 earners who don't own assets.

His November 2025 WSJ op-ed, "𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐞𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞'𝐬 𝐁𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩," doubled down: the Fed's "bloated balance sheet" has made borrowing "too easy for Wall Street while credit on Main Street is too tight."

🔹 Let's be honest: the Fed balance sheet is not just an accounting artifact - it's the crystallized consequence of decades of choices about who prospers and who waits.

Kevin Warsh has been consistent in the diagnosis. But what's the prescription?

❓If Main Street credit is too tight, does the cure align with Trump's push for aggressive rate cuts? 
❓Or does true support for the real economy require something more structural—and potentially more painful?

Kevin Warsh has said the right things and has the right experience. The question is whether the walk matches the talk when political pressure meets economic reality.
-----

Who is Kevin Warsh? At 55, he's a Stanford graduate, Harvard Law-trained, and was the youngest-ever Fed Governor when appointed (2006-2011). During the 2008 financial crisis, he served as the Fed's primary liaison to Wall Street and helped design the emergency lending programs that stabilized credit markets. Today, he is the Shepard Family Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Economics at the Hoover Institution, a lecturer at Stanford GSB, and a partner with legendary investor Stanley Druckenmiller at Duquesne Family Office. The Hoover affiliation (a policy research center known for intellectual rigor) may calm skeptics worried about a purely political appointment.

The Week in Review Saturday edition will include this post and will air tomorrow.
#FederalReserve #Fintech #FinancialServices #Banking

Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, interest rates, monetary policy

🔴 Agentic commerce infrastructure is going live — and the race to own the rails has begun.

This week, Worldline launched MCP servers for AI agents to initiate payments via natural language. PayPal endorsed Google's Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) alongside Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and 20+ partners. McKinsey projects $3–5 trillion in agentic commerce by 2030.

Welcome to the 32nd edition of the Agentic AI Newsletter for Financial Services!

A weekly edition with the essential intelligence on the AI-powered transformation of Financial Services. AI agents are working tirelessly 24/7 to curate global news and articles, which are enhanced with my human insights.

Here's what's shaping the agentic economy this week:
1️⃣ #Worldline launches MCP servers — AI agents can now initiate payments via natural language
2️⃣ #PayPal backs Google's Universal Commerce Protocol — joining Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe in standardizing agent transactions
3️⃣ #JPMorgan eliminates external proxy advisers — deploys Proxy IQ for 3,000+ annual shareholder meetings
4️⃣ Chime reports 30% AI-generated code and 90% weekly employee usage — AI as operating partner, not assistant
5️⃣ Q4's IR-focused AI wins Global AI Awards — domain-specific outperforms horizontal solutions
6️⃣ 72% of CEOs now lead AI decisions (doubled from last year) — half believe their jobs depend on it
7️⃣ #MAS pushes AI risk to boardroom accountability — no carve-outs for experimental deployments
8️⃣ BizFinBench.v2 reality check: ChatGPT-5 achieves only 61.5% on financial tasks — human oversight non-negotiable

The infrastructure is being built. The standards are being set. The question is: who will own the agent rails 😉?

Which development will have the biggest impact on your organization? Share your thoughts 👇

#AI #agents #fintech #finserv

Welcome to Agentic Newsletter for Financial Services — the first newsletter dedicated to the transformation in financial services driven by the advanc

Open article: Payment Giants Integrate Agent Rails While Singapore Pushes AI Risk to the Boardroom by Dr. Efi Pylarinou • 6 min read

Payment Giants Integrate Agent Rails While Singapore Pushes AI Risk to the Boardroom

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The Battle

Kamales Lardi

Efi Pylarinou

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The Battle

Kamales Lardi

Efi Pylarinou

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Efi Pylarinou's LinkedIn Performance

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