Kristy Malley has big dreams for her career and personal life. As a manager in EY’s Technology Solutions Delivery practice, she hopes to become a partner at the company someday. At home in Boulder, Colo., she is chasing big dreams, too, as a competitive runner hoping to smash her personal best 2:58 marathon time when she runs the Chicago Marathon this fall.
“I’m hoping to stay healthy and continue training at a high level so that one day I can meet the Olympic Trial Qualifying standard of 2:37,” she said.
Malley is a proud graduate of Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, where she earned a bachelor of science degree in information management and technology in 2018. She chose Syracuse after visiting the campus and immediately feeling at home.
“It had everything I was looking for from a college experience perspective – big sports teams, Greek life, study abroad, etc.,” she said. “I found a community of faculty and staff who were invested in me and some of my biggest supporters both inside and out of the classroom. The diverse iSchool curriculum prepared me perfectly for life after graduation and set me up to tackle any challenges that come my way.” 
Malley is used to tackling challenges in her role as a manager at EY, where she helps banks modernize their legacy technology and move to a modern, microservices-oriented banking architecture. Much of her job is focused on banking and capital markets clients who need help managing long-term core banking and payments system implementations.
“Many of my engagements involve completing current state technology capability assessments, designing target state system architecture, completing target state interface rationalization and managing teams that develop interfaces for their desired target state infrastructure,” she said. “I also have had recent experience with disputes and fraud system implementations, as well as agile product development.”
Recently, Malley helped a client assess options for a “Gen 3” core banking implementation (Finxact, Thought Machine, etc.). The project is very unique, she says, because her client operates as a BaaS (Banking as a Service) bank, and it would be one of the first Gen 3 core implementations of its kind in that space.
“Core banking technology is constantly evolving and I’m learning a lot about Gen 3 core capabilities and the future of banking technology on this engagement,” she said.
Another project she loved working on required her to develop and deploy a non-traditional micro lending product for a large regional bank.
“I got to do everything from product inception to defining product requirements, defining the product technology architecture, testing the product and ultimately seeing it go live and be used by the bank’s customers,” Malley said. “It can sometimes be hard to realize the impact of working with banking technology. That engagement meant a lot to me because I was a part of the end-to-end development of a very tangible product that customers use daily. It’s still live today!”
Malley credits the iSchool for exposing her to a variety of technologies and helping her to be adaptable and resourceful in her ever-changing career. She still leans on some of the skills she learned from her time at the iSchool, including SQL, Python and project management.
“Like EY, the iSchool has shaped me into the person I am today,” she said. “Attending the iSchool was one of the best things to ever happen to me.”