Threadneedle HQ
Founder · 2025–
Software for understanding and changing complex enterprise systems, retaining the knowledge and evidence each change produces.
Zia Karim
The technology is rarely what takes the time.
I’ve spent nearly three decades building and changing systems inside banks and software companies, from Goldman Sachs to companies of my own. What takes the time is the institution around the technology. My work is making years of change happen in weeks.
Now I build enterprise software for institutions that need to change, and write about how they recover the capacity to do it.
See the workRecord
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Institutional scale
Goldman Sachs
1999–2008
Led the rebuild of global regulatory, tax and client reporting for wealth management across Zurich, London and New York.
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Turnaround
RBS
2009–2010
Took over a mission-critical syndicated loan-book transfer programme and turned it around.
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Building a platform
Shoplandia
2015–2020
Built the platform for a venture-backed shoppable-video marketplace as CTO, leading product and technology for five years.
Also Barclays, Temenos and Salomon Brothers. Selected work
Current work
Holborn Mercer
Founder & Principal
A senior engineering practice that takes responsibility for enterprise platforms, from architecture through delivery.
Ideas & writing
I
Structural Saturation
Why a successful organisation reaches the point where more effort produces less change.
II
Modernization as Software
Modernisation as a capability the institution keeps, so each change makes the next one easier.
III
Adaptive AI Architecture
How an AI system can adapt to its work without exceeding the authority people have given it.
Featured book
The Modernization Mandate
How Leaders Restore the Capacity to Change in the Age of AI
Why change gets harder as institutions grow, and how leaders can make it a lasting capability.
Explore the bookA conversation
What’s taking years that shouldn’t?
If a consequential change is moving too slowly, a short note is enough to begin.