Ideals in Davos | How trust and technology are defining high-stakes decision making

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:02]Across the global economy, [music] many of the most important business decisions are being made under increasing pressure. Mergers, investments, and governance [music] processes demand speed, trust, and clarity. Yet, organizations are often working with fragmented information [music] and rising complexity. Joining us today are Evgeny Serebryakov, co-founder and chief executive officer [music] of iDeals, and Sabine Schels, vice president of corporate development, who will discuss how trust [music] and technology are reshaping high-stakes decision-making in a complex global environment.

[00:00:43]First of all, thank you so much to both of you for joining us here today. Great to join you. Thank you, Evgeny. So, let's start with you, Sabine. In today's world, big business decisions are often cross-border and fast-moving. What tends to slow them down, and what does good look like when it really works?

[00:01:00]What slows things down is rarely the decision itself. It is the coordination around it and finding the right focus.

[00:01:10]When information is scattered, confidence drops, people hesitate, progress stalls, and decisions get stuck at key stages and often on non-important topics.

[00:01:25]Good looks like the opposite.

[00:01:28]One clear, secure place to work, the right people with the right data accessible in the right place, tight access control, and a complete record of what happened.

[00:01:43]That is what is good.

[00:01:45]Have a combination of AI doing the legwork, and people focusing on the important topics and the right problem, and the right problem will change during the process.

[00:01:58]That is how you keep momentum.

[00:02:01]You can move quickly, but still you stay in control, and with that being confident to lead well through the deal.

[00:02:10]Now, turning over to you, Evgeny. iDeals says that its mission is to catalyze the world's most important business decisions. What does that mean in concrete terms? When we talk about important business decisions, we mean moments where a lot is at stake, board-level decisions, mergers and acquisitions, or major investments, from infrastructure financing to licensing a new biotech product.

[00:02:35]So, these decisions can shape companies, industries, and sometimes even entire regions.

[00:02:43]So, to make such decisions, uh teams are working under high pressure.

[00:02:48]They need to review large volumes of sensitive information in very tight timelines.

[00:02:53]And that typically leads to friction, especially when data is spread across multiple tools and channels, or without proper integrity and security controls. And iDeals' mission is to remove that friction.

[00:03:08]We provide a single, secure place to collaborate on sensitive information with ease of access and control.

[00:03:17]So, teams can focus on the decision itself rather than chasing data.

[00:03:23]And that's what we mean by catalyzing important business decisions.

[00:03:27]And for all the people out there who don't really know about iDeals, give us a quick background here. Where did the company start, and where are you based today? We've been growing the company from 2008 for about 17 years now. The whole team was based in Ukraine, and we had the global ambition from the start.

[00:03:46]So, we focused on international transactions.

[00:03:49]And we managed to gain traction by delivering a highly secure service with a frictionless experience. As a business scaled, we established our global headquarters in Switzerland.

[00:04:02]You know, it's internationally connected, stable, and predictable jurisdiction, well-suited to serve enterprise clients.

[00:04:12]And we have our teams, data, and computing infrastructure across 16 financial centers.

[00:04:19]So, we can support our clients locally and give them the flexibility in data residency.

[00:04:26]It seems everyone is talking about AI right now. In your world, where does such new technologies actually help, and where do you still need human judgment?

[00:04:36]Our clients work under tight timelines and they deal with huge volumes of data.

[00:04:42]So, what we observe that in such a context, the most valuable asset becomes attention. And that's actually where I helps a lot, because AI can control these volumes of data and highlight risks, find gaps, or critical details.

[00:05:02]So, it helps to direct attention to what really matters. But human judgment remains non-negotiable, because only people can decide what a particular risk means, how material this risk, and how to mitigate it.

[00:05:19]So, ultimately, people remain accountable for the outcome.

[00:05:23]Sabina, let's follow up there. When a major deal or investment is moving, what are the non-negotiables for security and governance so that the timeline doesn't slip?

[00:05:32]So, the most important thing is sensitive information must be protected end-to-end, especially when external parties are involved.

[00:05:44]Control has to be precise.

[00:05:47]The right people get access, the wrong people do not, and access can be changed and revoked instantly and issue-driven.

[00:05:57]There needs to be a very good and clear audit trail, so you can see who opened what, when, and what changed.

[00:06:07]It also has to run smoothly at scale.

[00:06:10]The goal is very simple.

[00:06:13]Keep the work moving forward quickly without cutting corners or trust. That deliver long-term, sustainable value to communities and stable returns for investors. For them, multiple parties need to review and share sensitive information under a very tight timeline.

[00:06:35]Strong access control, the full audit trail, and a platform that handles volume smoothly are essential, and this is how iDeals should really contribute to the success.

[00:06:51]As we all know, big projects rarely go exactly to plan. So, when timelines slip and the workload grows, how do you keep things predictable for clients and avoid any surprises? We focus on keeping the experience predictable. Clients can plan properly and stay in control of the work as it grows.

[00:07:14]Access, data, cost, truly transparent at the fingertips of those that orchestrate the process, so that nobody needs to worry about a virtual data room.

[00:07:28]The full focus is on the deal.

[00:07:30]No surprises, no hidden agenda.

[00:07:34]And commercially, the same principle applies.

[00:07:38]The process is hard enough, so that the commercial model should stay straightforward with out a surprise, readily showing the status at any given moment if required.

[00:07:52]Evgeny, when you look ahead to 2026, what is changing in how big business decisions get done, and why does that play to your strengths? So, I believe 2026 is about winning operators and investors who will will run disciplined, transparent processes at scale. The second shift is increasing and fragmenting regulations around equity deals.

[00:08:15]So, we see national security reviews now extend beyond traditional sectors like defense, and we see them in some technologies such as data platforms, enterprise software, and AI-enabled systems. But these technologies are embedded across most businesses nowadays.

[00:08:36]So, we see more transactions are under review. The result is broader investment pipelines, deeper diligence, and heavier documentation.

[00:08:47]And that's actually the environment we built iDeals for. Most importantly, as one in eight M&A transactions run on our platform, we can leverage this scale to continuously improve workflows and automations based on real-time feedback and user behavior.

[00:09:06]Sabina, Davos talks a lot about public and private sectors working together.

[00:09:11]Can you give a real example of where that shows up in practice, and how does iDeals help to keep that kind of work moving?

[00:09:18]We are not a public-private partnership organization, but we do support the work that make those partnerships function.

[00:09:28]IFC, the International Finance Corporation, World Bank Group, with their mobility and road infrastructure projects.

[00:09:37]This team has acted as an advisor alongside the Brazilian government entities on mobility and road concession programs, supporting the structuring of PPP, so the public-private partnership, and the attraction of private capital.

[00:09:58]The goal is to make projects bankable and attractive to private capital by keeping public oversight and service standards. Another example is EDF, Electricite de France, the power solutions unit, is a global leader in carb low-carbon energy infrastructure, and it relies on us to manage large-scale high-stake renewal projects worldwide, including, for example, the flag- the flagship development in Matamau hydropower, the project in Malawi.

[00:10:39]The partnership supports complex tendering and procuring processes by securely handling hundreds of gigabytes of project data, while integrating seamlessly with EDF power solutions' internal systems.

[00:10:56]Through automation, security, and scale, we enable EDF power solutions to maintain efficiency and data integrity across the full multi-year life cycle of global energy infrastructure projects.

[00:11:16]That is what keeps timelines from slipping and helps really big projects move forward with confidence.

[00:11:25]And just finally, what are you building next, and what's the single message you want leaders to take away from all this conversation? iDeals has become part of core digital infrastructure for M&A and other high-stakes projects.

[00:11:39]And what motivates us is seeing how we contribute to the infrastructure to accelerate capital deployment, innovation, and ultimately economic growth. Talking about what we are working on, over the past years, we have focused on understanding where iDeals delivers real practical value.

[00:12:01]And the next steps are first, scaling those capabilities, and second, embedding iDeals into a broader ecosystem of adjacent and more specialized solutions from deal sourcing and diligence automation to post-investment or post-merger workflows.

[00:12:23]So, iDeals remains the trusted backbone for data collaboration that speeds up decisions, while integrations with best-in-class partner solutions help our clients move even faster.

[00:12:37]It's been a real pleasure to speak with both of you. Thank you so much, once again, for joining us here today.

[00:12:43]iDeals' approach reflects a broader shift in how organizations manage complexity, [music] risk, and responsibility in moments that matter most. As global markets adjust [music] and deal activity evolves, the need for trusted platforms will only grow.

[00:12:58]iDeals' vision shows how technology, [music] when built around trust and usability, can play a quiet but essential role in enabling progress across the global economy.