Zelig Associates, a boutique investment bank specialising in fintech, has named Dale Richards as senior advisor. Richards will be based in Toronto and support the team globally. Richards has over 30 years’ experience in fintech, data and analytics as a senior executive, investor and consultant. His appointment will strengthen Zelig’s global reach and domain expertise in fintech, and support relationships with strategic acquirers, start-ups, and investors. Richards is the founder and managing partner of Island 20 Ventures, a strategy and advisory firm in the fields of alternative data, data management, big data, analytics, technology, business strategy and data monetisation.

Vela has named Scott Visconti as chief technology officer (CTO), a role reporting to CEO Jennifer Nayar and responsible for technology strategy, supporting growth and next stage development of Vela’s product stack, services and processes. Visconti will be based in Vela’s headquarters in New York and will lead the global development team while working alongside the executive team to cement the firm’s position as an innovative and transformational leader. Prior to joining Vela, Visconti co-founded MarketOpen, a start-up data analytics platform providing trading surveillance of stocks, exchange-traded funds, equity options, futures and crypto assets for investor relations and market professionals.

Moody’s has named industry veteran Mona Breed as chief information officer (CIO) with effect from October 15, 2018. Breed succeeds Tony Stoupas, who has led Moody’s IT organisation as CIO since 2010 and will remain with the company until the end of 2018. As CIO, Breed will lead Moody’s global technology infrastructure and programmes, and report to president and CEO Raymond McDaniel. She joins the company from Oppenheimer Funds, where she led IT infrastructure and drove innovation and transformation around the firm’s cloud computing, unified communication and collaboration, data centre operations and workplace technologies.