Valstro Appoints Chris Valpone as Head of Sales

Valstro has appointed Chris Valpone as Head of Sales as the cloud-native order management system provider expands its US operations and moves into its next phase of commercial growth.

Valpone joins from Quod Financial, where he served as Head of Sales for the Americas. He brings 25 years of financial services experience, including senior sales roles at Fidessa, where he was Head of Sales for the Americas before becoming Global Head of Sales for Fidessa and other capital markets businesses within ION Markets following ION’s acquisition of Fidessa.

The appointment follows several years of investment by Valstro in building, launching and commercialising its OMS platform. The company is expanding its US-based team to support product development and a growing client base.

Valstro’s cloud-native platform provides connectivity to buy-side firms, global brokers and market data, with the company targeting greater automation and flexibility across institutional trading workflows.

DTCC Appoints Samir Pandiri as Chief Client Officer

DTCC has appointed Samir Pandiri as Managing Director and Chief Client Officer, joining the company’s Executive Committee and reporting to President and CEO Frank LaSalla. Pandiri will oversee DTCC’s Global Client Management organisation, including client leads, relationship management and growth, partnerships and strategic alliances. His remit also covers DTCC Consulting Services and Marketing & Communications, with responsibility for developing client and stakeholder relationships across the business.

He brings more than 30 years of financial services experience spanning post-trade infrastructure, asset servicing, fund administration, capital markets, fintech, wealth management and trustee services.

Pandiri joins DTCC following senior leadership roles at TMF Group, Apex Group, Broadridge International and BNY. He has led teams across the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific during his career, including more than 15 years working in Hong Kong and London.

Trading Technologies Names Maxime Jeanniard du Dot to Lead Margin Business

Trading Technologies (TT) has promoted Maxime Jeanniard du Dot to EVP, Margin Analytics, giving him responsibility for the TT Margin business created following the company’s acquisition of OpenGamma in December.

Jeanniard du Dot spent 10 years as Chief Operating Officer of OpenGamma before its acquisition by TT. The firm’s margin analytics technology is used by hedge funds, asset managers, commodity trading firms and banks to manage capital and margin requirements. Under Jeanniard du Dot, TT plans to expand the business into cross-asset margin optimisation as clients increasingly trade across multiple asset classes and seek greater visibility into margin requirements and capital usage.

Before joining OpenGamma, Jeanniard du Dot was Trading Platform Owner for HSBC’s cleared OTC derivatives business in London. He previously worked as a Market Specialist at Calypso Technology and as an analyst at Accenture.

Apex Group Taps Ouaknine as Global Head of Digital Markets Infrastructure & Wealth Distribution

Apex Group has appointed Jørgen Ouaknine as Global Head of Digital Markets Infrastructure & Wealth Distribution. Based in New York City and reporting to Georges Archibald, CEO of Apex Distribution Ouaknine will oversee the firm’s strategy across digital markets infrastructure and wealth distribution. In this role, he focuses on expanding relationships with digital exchanges, financial market infrastructures, and intermediaries to connect fund managers with new distribution channels and capital sources, while supporting Apex’s capabilities in digital assets and tokenisation.

Ouaknine joins Apex from Euroclear, where he most recently served as Global Head of Innovation & Digital Assets and Head of Products Americas. During his tenure at Euroclear, he established the company’s digital assets practice and led the launch of its initial digital market infrastructure. His professional background also includes several senior leadership positions at BNP Paribas focusing on strategy, transformation, and digital innovation.

“Capital markets are moving toward a more connected model, where infrastructure, distribution and access to capital increasingly converge,” says Ouaknine. “Apex Group is uniquely positioned at that intersection, with capabilities spanning distribution, technology and operations. I’m very excited to join the team and work with clients and partners to open new distribution channels, connect investment opportunities with new pools of capital and help build the market infrastructure needed to support them at scale.”

Broadridge Appoints Alex Duggan to Lead International BPO Growth

Broadridge Financial Solutions has appointed Alex Duggan as Head of BPO International, with responsibility for expanding its business process outsourcing operations across EMEA and Asia-Pacific. Duggan will also oversee the continued development of Broadridge’s Glasgow hub, which the company is positioning as a strategic UK centre for client service, operational innovation and technology-led delivery.

The Glasgow operation supports a global investment bank as an anchor client and is intended to provide scalable UK and European delivery capabilities as financial institutions seek greater operational resilience, geographic diversification and access to specialist talent.

Duggan brings 30 years of experience across investment banking operations, business transformation and commercial leadership. He joins Broadridge from Cognizant, where he was Capital Markets Business Unit Head in London, overseeing commercial strategy, go-to-market activities and service delivery. His previous work included helping capital markets firms modernise operating models and improve efficiency through technology and data-driven transformation.

Behavox Appoints Former Macquarie Surveillance Head Rich Ziegenbalg as Executive Advisor

Behavox has appointed former Macquarie Group surveillance head Rich Ziegenbalg as Executive Advisor, adding three decades of banking experience to its work with compliance and surveillance teams.

Ziegenbalg will advise Behavox customers and prospective clients on surveillance target operating models, control frameworks and programme maturity. He will also contribute to the company’s regulatory strategy, industry engagement and product positioning.

He joins from Macquarie, where he served as Global Head of e-Communications Surveillance. His previous positions include Global Head of Surveillance – Compliance at BNY Mellon and Global Head of Institutional Clients Group Compliance Surveillance at Citigroup.

Ziegenbalg has also held senior control roles at Morgan Stanley and Barclays Capital. At Morgan Stanley, he served as Global Head of Risk & Controls. His Barclays role covered front-office supervision.

The appointment gives Behavox access to a practitioner who has managed electronic communications, voice and trade surveillance, as well as front-office controls. His responsibilities will span external advisory work and internal guidance on the regulatory and operational requirements facing surveillance functions.

“What drew me to Behavox is the chance to bring that experience directly to compliance teams as they work through those decisions, whether that’s a customer thinking through their surveillance program design or a prospect trying to understand what good looks like,” Ziegenbalg said.

Behavox Chief Revenue Officer Nabeel Ebrahim said Ziegenbalg’s experience would inform discussions with customers about control design and surveillance operating models. It would also strengthen the company’s understanding of the priorities facing heads of surveillance, he added.

Behavox provides communications and trade surveillance, archiving and central control capabilities through nine connected products. The company describes the platform as providing a common record across communication channels, asset classes and jurisdictions.

The appointment follows Behavox’s expansion in 2026. The company opened an office in Milan in August after raising $175 million in preferred equity from HPS Investment Partners in June. Behavox said it now serves more than 120 financial institutions, including 70 global banks, a central bank and a national regulator. The company also said it has been profitable since 2024.

VoxSmart Adds Sales and Customer Engagement Leaders Following VX1 Launch

VoxSmart has appointed Royce Wilkie as Global Sales Director and Andy Faulknall as Head of Customer Engagement following the launch of its VX1 communications compliance platform.

Wilkie will lead the company’s sales activity across its target financial markets. He brings more than a decade of experience working with asset managers and investment banks on communications compliance requirements.

His appointment comes as financial institutions seek to capture and monitor communications across a growing range of channels. Wilkie said: “Financial institutions are dealing with a communications environment that is becoming more fragmented and more difficult to oversee.”

Faulknall joins after holding senior product and technology roles at HSBC. His new remit covers customer relationships and the development of strategic partnerships, bringing an institutional user perspective to VoxSmart’s product and engagement work.

The appointments follow the September launch of VX1, which combines mobile capture, communications surveillance, investigations, archiving, voice transcription and artificial intelligence-driven workflows within one platform.

VX1 represents VoxSmart’s move towards a unified platform for managing communications data and compliance workflows. The company is targeting investment banks, asset managers and other financial institutions seeking to reduce fragmentation between capture, surveillance and investigation systems.

Oliver Blower, chief executive of VoxSmart, linked the appointments to the company’s plans for the platform. “As we take VX1 to more financial institutions around the world, we need to be just as strong in how we engage with customers as we are in the technology we build,” he said.

Faulknall said his experience at HSBC had exposed him to the operational challenge of managing communications, technology and regulatory requirements across a large financial institution. His role will focus on incorporating that customer perspective into VoxSmart’s partnerships and the deployment of VX1.

DataFi Appoints Flannery to Lead Institutional Markets and Ecosystems

DataFi Grouph has appointed Heather Leigh Flannery as its new Head of Institutional Markets and Canton Network/Ethereum Ecosystems. In this role, Flannery is tasked with leading the company’s commercial launch, expanding its footprint in the US market, managing strategic partnerships and driving policy and regulatory engagement across the institutional finance sector. The appointment serves as a strategic extension of an existing alliance between DataFi Group and AI MINDSystems Impact, where Flannery will continue to concurrently serve as Co-Founder, Board Chair, and CEO.

DataFi Group is a specialist in blockchain-based quantitative market infrastructure, risk engine design, and automated market making (AMM) protocols. The company specialises in providing capital-efficient, agent-native volatility and risk management tools. Its core offerings include the GM! Index family (which delivers continuous benchmark pricing across crypto and tokenised commodities), a proprietary quantitative Probability Density Foundation Model, and the Multi-Sector x402 Agent Suite – a set of automated API protocols that allow AI agents and smart contracts to autonomously price and settle risk under strict compliance structures.

The company’s technology is deeply intertwined with decentralised finance (DeFi) and digital assets by serving as a critical pricing and settlement layer for the rapidly growing perpetual futures (“perps”) market. Traditionally popular in DeFi for offering 24/7 trading and high capital efficiency, perps have suffered from oracle manipulation risks and fragmented liquidity. DataFi Group bridges this gap by bringing its unmanipulable, probability-density-backed continuous markets to both the public Ethereum EVM DeFi ecosystem and the private institutional rails of the Canton Network, effectively merging decentralised liquidity with institutional-grade clearing rails.

Through Flannery’s dual leadership, DataFi Group will also help connect these universal digital asset mechanics with new real-world asset classes. Specifically, AI MINDSystems will utilise DataFi’s index feeds to power its institutional data market, showcasing how advanced blockchain infrastructure can bring safe price discovery, liquidity and financialisation to tokenised personal and health data estates.

Arcesium Appoints New President, Revenue and Commercial

Arcesium has appointed Brian Rosenberg as President, Revenue and Commercial to oversee client development, partner development and go-to-market strategy.

Rosenberg previously worked at Wilshire Indexes as President and Chief Revenue Officer, and held positions at Qontigo, FTSE Russell, LSEG, SunGard, MSCI and RiskMetrics Group over 20 years.

The role involves reporting to Chief Executive Gaurav Suri and expanding the client base following the acquisition of Limina and the launch of Arcesium Intelligence.

Suri said: “We have built significant momentum by staying focused on solving complex challenges for our clients. With Brian’s experience in driving revenue, I’m confident we can extend that momentum, broaden our impact, and bring our capabilities to more firms across the industry.”

Gresham Appoints Former Allvue Leader as Chief Product & AI Officer

Gresham Technologies has named Davit Harutyunyan as Chief Product & AI Officer to lead product strategy, management, innovation and AI.
Harutyunyan previously worked as Head of Product, Platform & Innovation at Allvue Systems and held leadership roles at Fidessa and CQG during two decades in capital markets technology.

Gresham chief executive Spiros Giannaros said that Harutyunyan has a record of taking AI-native platforms from concept to market and bringing complex platforms together into unified products.