In February, Sean Desmond was appointed president, CEO and board member of Wilmington-based fintech company nCino.

Desmond, who was previously nCino’s chief product officer in a role in which he oversaw about two-thirds of the company's employees, succeeded Pierre Naudé, who remained on as the board’s executive chairman. 

Desmond shared more details with the Business Journal about his new role and plans for the cloud-based banking software company.

What drew you to take this new role?
“With the advancement of AI, fintech has truly entered a new era – with limitless opportunity to harness generative and agentic AI solutions that can transform the nCino platform and help our customers become even more efficient, reduce risk, and better serve their customers. 

Just like nCino leads banks to the cloud, I see a massive opportunity for us to partner with our customers and ecosystem to guide them through this next inflection point. We now have proprietary AI capabilities that are purpose-built for our primary customer base of banks, credit unions and independent mortgage brokers and their customers.

I believe with the foundation we stand on, specifically our customer base and the scale with which we operate, we are uniquely positioned to cement our leadership role in fintech. Beyond the compelling market opportunity, having been here at nCino since 2013, I am passionate about the company, our culture, our people and the role we play, not only in the Wilmington community, but the communities where we have offices around the world.”
 
You’ve been with nCino since 2013, joining as its chief customer success officer and then chief product officer last year. What were some of your biggest highlights since then?
“nCino has been on a remarkable journey, and I’m incredibly proud of the company for two main reasons. 

The first is our impact on financial services and, through our founding mission, our ability to transform the industry through innovation, reputation and speed. Outcomes matter, and we drive efficiency into the balance sheets of our customers. 

Building organizations to scale is something I’ve been proud of in both roles. 

While I was leading the Customer Success organization, my goal was to build a foundation, and now there’s a new team in place that is taking it to the next level. In my role as chief product officer, which I was in for a shorter duration, the highlights were more about aligning the department to the company’s mission and investing time and resources that would garner the return expected by our shareholders.

As mentioned, we’ve been building and innovating to make sure that we’re well-positioned to help financial institutions unlock the value of their data to drive effective AI strategies. Seeing the Product Development & Engineering team and all other departments rally behind that opportunity has been a major highlight because we’re doing some truly cutting-edge work.

I remind our teams often: One of the hardest things to do in life is to recognize the moment when you are in it. Companies evolve and reach inflection points, whether driven by external factors or internal inertia. In my previous roles, I’ve always challenged myself and my teams to recognize those moments, be willing to reimagine our approach and run toward the change so long as it aligns with the objectives of our customers and shareholders. I’ve been fortunate to have strong teams and leaders around me who’ve run toward those goals – and in many cases challenged me to evolve my own thinking.

The second is all the ways we've been able to give back to the communities in which we have offices, particularly Wilmington. Between the nCino Sports Park and nCino Hunger Solutions Center – both of which have opened in the last couple of years – and the many other causes we contribute time and resources to, it’s incredibly rewarding to see the compound effects of our growth and ability to give back.”
  
What role do you continue to see for nCino in Wilmington?
“We want nCino to remain a choice place to work for top talent from across the country and the world. The technology we’re working on in terms of generative AI, predicative AI, agentic AI, etc., is as bleeding-edge as you will find in Silicon Valley, New York and other tech hubs.

We’re proudly headquartered in Wilmington and will continue to strategically attract talent to the Wilmington area. 

Think of where Wilmington is today with our fintech and broader tech presence compared to a decade ago. I see no reason this shouldn’t continue and grow more in the next 10 years as a hub for talent. 

There have been shifts in the talent landscape, especially since COVID, and where top talent is migrating to. We will continue to capitalize on that reality. Why not Wilmington? And if there are areas where we can improve in terms of attracting talent, we are happy to collaborate with local city and regional leaders and peers to get better and stronger as a talent hub. 

We will also hire the very best talent in fintech wherever we can find it in the case of niche roles and unique skills. We’re committed to building a sustainable company – and community.”
 
What’s ahead for nCino this year?
“Our focus is on maximizing the opportunity in front of us and powering the new era in financial services in the age of AI and rapid technological innovation. It’s more than an evolution, it’s a revolution. 

In May, we’re hosting our annual user conference, nSight, where we’ll unveil many of our recent innovations and product developments. We are always balancing the feedback we get from our customers with where we see the market headed and prioritizing accordingly.

At nSight, we will deliver on many of our platform and omnichannel imperatives. Beyond nSight, we will pivot the entire energy of the company to the AI opportunity, literally cannibalizing our own workflow by building AI skills and wrapping agentic AI around those skills to automate experiences, end to end. 

We envision drastically reducing speed to market needs for our customers across the spectrum of things we do (onboarding, account opening, loan origination and portfolio management) and in the lines of business we serve (commercial, consumer, small business and mortgage). 

I come back to outcomes. We’ll spend time sharing the value and impacts our solutions are having on our customer base. We also remain focused on our continued international growth and fully integrating the companies we acquired last year that have increased our total addressable market.”
 
What are some long-term focuses for you and for the company overall?
“Similar to how we became the worldwide leader in cloud banking, my goal is solidifying our position as the worldwide leader in automated, intelligent, best-in-class banking solutions. 

The nCino platform today combines industry, customer and process data with advanced analytics, predictive AI and generative AI to deliver premier solutions specific to financial institutions’ most pressing challenges. 

We have a customer base that is the envy of the industry – in breadth and scale. 
We must go deeper across our portfolio of solutions that empower institutions with process, knowledge and platform efficiency to optimize operations, enhance decision-making and enrich banker and customer experiences for accelerated growth. 

We have a real opportunity to be the data access layer, or ‘gateway,’ to predictive insights for financial services. My job is to make sure we capitalize on this opportunity in a way that yields growth for our employees, customers and shareholders. 

This will continue to be our near-term and long-term focus, and my accountability is to ensure that we execute with urgency and precision to deliver sustainable and profitable growth.”