# Strawpath

> Independent technology assessment and vendor selection for UK banks, pension schemes, wealth managers, insurers, building societies and mortgage lenders.

Strawpath is a founder-led advisory practice that helps CIOs and CTOs in UK financial services make defensible technology vendor decisions. It covers the full arc from build vs buy analysis, through market scans and structured vendor selection, to ongoing vendor intelligence and monitoring. Strawpath is run by Andrew Mugoya, a former technology leader at Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Barclays, Mastercard, Smart Pension and Charity Bank.

## Pages

- [/](/): Home — technology assessment and vendor selection for banks, pension schemes and financial firms.
- [/about](/about): About Strawpath and Andrew Mugoya, sectors served and how the practice stays ahead of the market.
- [/what-we-do](/what-we-do): Services including build / buy / outsource analysis, market scans, shortlisting, RFP evaluation and vendor health monitoring.
- [/who-we-work-with](/who-we-work-with): Sectors served: retail banking, pensions, wealth and asset management, insurance, building societies and mortgage lenders.
- [/vendor-intelligence](/vendor-intelligence): Five-dimension vendor intelligence methodology covering functional fit, architecture, commercial viability, risk and compliance, and roadmap traction.
- [/contact](/contact): Contact details, LinkedIn and book an appointment.
- [/insights](/insights): Index of articles and reports on vendor selection, technology strategy and architecture for UK financial services.
- [/insights/5-questions-before-your-rfp](/insights/5-questions-before-your-rfp): Five questions every financial firm should ask before starting a technology RFP.
- [/insights/unseen-giant-in-finance](/insights/unseen-giant-in-finance): Insight report on transformation and innovation in pensions, with a global focus and Sub-Saharan Africa spotlight.
- [/insights/operational-resilience-dora](/insights/operational-resilience-dora): Mapping vendor SLAs and disaster recovery to Important Business Services and DORA expectations.
- [/insights/dual-core-risk-management](/insights/dual-core-risk-management): Running legacy and modern cores in parallel without vendor over-dependency or fragmentation.
- [/insights/adopt-over-adapt](/insights/adopt-over-adapt): The case for minimal necessary change and model bank configurations in platform implementations.
- [/insights/vendor-ecosystem-maturity](/insights/vendor-ecosystem-maturity): Why the partner ecosystem matters as much as the core platform in vendor selection.
- [/insights/business-aligned-technology-strategy](/insights/business-aligned-technology-strategy): Why a business-aligned technology strategy must come before vendor selection.
- [/insights/build-vs-buy-asked-too-late](/insights/build-vs-buy-asked-too-late): Why the build vs buy question is often asked too late, and how to bring it forward.
- [/insights/vendor-ai-roadmap-vs-story](/insights/vendor-ai-roadmap-vs-story): How to distinguish a genuine vendor AI roadmap from a marketing story.
- [/insights/shortlist-conversation](/insights/shortlist-conversation): Key considerations during market scans, before shortlisting vendors.
- [/insights/why-financial-firms-need-structured-vendor-selection](/insights/why-financial-firms-need-structured-vendor-selection): Why regulated financial firms need logical and structured vendor selection processes.
- [/insights/5-reasons-transparent-collaborative-vendor-selection](/insights/5-reasons-transparent-collaborative-vendor-selection): Why regulated financial institutions need transparent, methodical and collaborative vendor selection processes.
- [/insights/ai-adoption-strategies](/insights/ai-adoption-strategies): A six-mode framework for AI adoption in finance, banking and pensions.
- [/insights/pepp-case-study](/insights/pepp-case-study): Case study on the Pan-European Personal Pension Product and its technology implications.
- [/insights/uk-deep-tech-xi](/insights/uk-deep-tech-xi): Scouting report on UK deep tech startups reshaping infrastructure beneath financial services.

## Optional

- [/privacy-policy](/privacy-policy): Privacy policy.
- [/cookie-policy](/cookie-policy): Cookie policy.