Ken Marlin

Ken Marlin is a CEO, founder, investment banker, FinTech leader, and trusted advisor to boards, CEOs, and investors around the globe. He has spent three decades at the intersection of technology and corporate strategy, helping organizations drive sustainable growth, execute transformative strategies, adopt new technologies, and create long-term value for stakeholders worldwide.  Four times, Institutional Investor has named Ken as one of the 50 most influential people in FinTech.  He is an inaugural member of the Market Data Hall of Fame. Ken is also the author of “The Marine Corps Way to Win on Wall Street” (St. Martin’s Press), where he distills 11 leadership principles learned as a US Marine into actionable lessons for Wall Street–and Main Street–principles that are rooted in disciplined strategic focus, accountability, team building, decisiveness, and integrity.

Ken is the founder of Marlin & Associates Securities, the award-winning international investment bank and strategy consulting firm that he led for twenty years.  There, he and his team leveraged domain expertise, a global outlook and technology to advise clients on strategic transformation, mergers, acquisitions, investments, joint ventures, divestitures and other strategic initiatives in 26 countries. His clients included NYSE, Deutsche Bourse, SWIFT and countless other publicly listed and privately held organizations.

Before founding Marlin & Associates, Ken spent 15 years as a senior corporate executive-including twice as a tech company CEO.  Telesphere, the b2b FinTech company that Ken founded, led, and later sold, was an early adopter of advanced technologies including cloud and process automation (precursor to generative AI).  The firm became a recognized leader in critical, real-time, capital markets trading infrastructure, serving clients in the US, Europe and Asia, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Nomura, and UBS.

What differentiates Ken is his ability to leverage his early experience as a corporate executive, a tech company CEO and a Marine into a cohesive framework – to connect financial, operational and technological, leadership, investment banking insight, stakeholder management and market perspectives into clear, actionable strategies. He uses this framework to help forward looking executive teams implement those strategies, make better decisions, manage transformation, move faster, and align strategy with long-term shareholder value creation.  

Ken Marlin earned an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, an Advanced Certificate in Corporate Strategy from New York University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of California, Irvine.  He also earned FINRA Series 7, 63, 79, and 24 (supervisory) licenses.

Beyond his professional work, Ken is deeply committed to education, community development, and nonprofit leadership. He actively supports organizations expanding access to education and opportunity.  He has served on multiple nonprofit boards dedicated to youth development, recovery, and public service.