Broadridge Taps Mark Nichols as Co-President of Digital Assets

Broadridge Financial Solutions has recruited Mark Nichols to be Co-President of its Digital Assets business unit. Nichols, who joints from EY where he was a Partner, will lead Broadridge’s strategy, product development, and execution in the tokenisation and digital asset arena. He will work alongside Co-President German Soto, who adds the Co-President title to his Chief Product Officer role.

Broadridge enables on-chain proxy voting and governance, provides digital asset infrastructure including post trade, wallets and custody, and supports the scaling of digital asset capabilities across multiple asset classes. Additionally, Broadridge’s Distributed Ledger Repo (DLR) solution is the world’s largest institutional platform for settling tokenised real assets, tokenising more than $365 billion per day.

Ethereum Foundation Sheds Staff, Researchers Depart to Launch Ethlab

The Ethereum Foundation is cutting approximately 20% of its staff in a reorganisation that will reduce its operating budget by 40% and slow a drain on its treasury funds. The resulting organization will focus on enterprise engagement, financial infrastructure and policy coordination, as well as continuing work on censorship resistance and self-sovereign architecture.

Meanwhile, five key researchers left the foundation to launch Ethlabs, a non-profit R&D lab. The researchers – Ansgar Dietrichs, Barnabé Monnot, Caspar Schwarz-Schilling, Josh Rudolf and Julian Ma – will focus on consensus, cryptography and execution-layer research, and so will overlap with continuing research at the foundation. Initial backing for Ethlabs has been provided by Bitmine, Sharplink and Consensys founder Joe Lubin.

DTCC Expands Board with Senior Market Structure, Treasury and Operations Leaders

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has appointed four senior financial services executives to its Board of Directors, reinforcing governance oversight across market infrastructure, risk, and post-trade operations.

The new appointees – Roland Chai (Nasdaq), Massimiliano Ciardi (Citadel), Stephen Hood (Marex), and Georges Lauchard (Barclays) – bring experience spanning exchange operations, treasury and funding, clearing, and large-scale technology transformation. Their appointments come at a point where post-trade infrastructures are under increasing regulatory and operational scrutiny, particularly around resilience, margining, liquidity risk, and the integration of digital asset workflows.

Chai, currently President of European Markets and Head of Digital Assets at Nasdaq, contributes experience across trading venues, central counterparties (CCPs), and central securities depositories (CSDs), alongside a background as the firm’s first Global Chief Risk Officer. His profile aligns with ongoing industry efforts to align traditional market infrastructure with emerging digital asset models.

Ciardi, Global Treasurer at Citadel, brings a treasury and balance sheet management perspective, covering liquidity, counterparty exposure, and capital optimisation. This is directly relevant as clearing houses and market utilities continue to assess funding pressures under stressed conditions, including intraday liquidity demands and margin procyclicality.

Hood, Americas Head of Clearing at Marex, adds operational clearing expertise across futures and options, alongside exposure to digital asset clearing and tokenisation frameworks – areas increasingly intersecting with regulatory discussions on market structure and custody.

Lauchard, Chief Operating Officer of Barclays Investment Bank, contributes experience in large-scale technology and operations transformation, including control frameworks and infrastructure modernisation. This is particularly relevant as market infrastructures and participants invest in cloud migration, data standardisation, and automation to meet evolving supervisory expectations.

The DTCC Board of Directors is currently composed of 21 Directors. Of these, 13 are participant Directors who represent clearing agency members, including international broker/dealers, custodian and clearing banks, and investment institutions; four are non-participant Directors; two Directors are designated by DTCC’s preferred shareholders, ICE and FINRA; and the remaining two Board members are DTCC’s Non-Executive Chairman and its President and Chief Executive Officer.

From a RegTech and supervisory perspective, the appointments underscore several themes. First, the increasing convergence between market infrastructure governance and regulatory priorities, particularly around operational resilience and systemic risk. Second, the growing importance of treasury and liquidity expertise at board level, as regulators focus on stress preparedness and collateral dynamics. Third, the integration of digital assets into mainstream infrastructure discussions, requiring governance that spans both traditional and emerging asset classes.