Gina Nichols discusses the unique position Nymbus holds as a core banking provider for regional banks and credit unions, offering a full-service modern platform or modular “sidecar” systems. She describes how the company enables financial institutions to test new digital experiences without disrupting their legacy systems—giving them a competitive edge in a conservative market.

As CISO, Gina outlines the layered responsibility of securing both the company and its clients, noting that Nymbus must meet the expectations of regulators, auditors, and customers simultaneously. Her leadership style—calm, structured, and collaborative—stems from decades of hands-on work in stressful environments. She emphasizes the importance of designing strong foundations and integrating security early in the software development lifecycle.

Gina also shares her unconventional career path, starting at the help desk and evolving through roles in NOC operations, divestiture planning, disaster recovery, and consulting. Her ability to “speak geek” and business made her an ideal bridge between tech and leadership, even starting at Nymbus in a sales engineer role before growing into the CISO position. Mentorship and team learning, she says, played pivotal roles in her growth.

The episode concludes with a forward-looking discussion on fraud prevention and AI. Gina explains how Nymbus is leveraging behavioral biometrics and LLMs (large language models) for fraud detection, as well as their partnership with DataVisor to combat emerging threats. She also offers insight into the long road ahead for financial system modernization—predicting slow but steady progress in areas like ACH, wire fraud detection, and even blockchain’s future in regulated environments.