Kay Swinburne Named as Chair of the International Regulatory Strategy Group

Dr Kay Swinburne, vice chair of financial services at KPMG UK and former vice chair of the European Parliament’s Economics and Monetary Affairs Committee, has been named chair of the International Regulatory Strategy Group (IRSG). The role was previously held by former city minister Mark Hoban.

The IRSG is focused on promoting regulation that encourages open and competitive global markets. Recent priorities have included the UK’s regulatory framework post-Brexit, ESG and a green finance taxonomy, and priorities for the G7 to be held in the UK this summer. The group is co-sponsored by TheCityUK and the City of London Corporation, and comprises senior practitioners from across the financial and related professional services industry.

Swinburne says: “I am very pleased to be taking up this role at such a crucial time for the UK as an international financial centre. With the global challenge to recover from the economic impact of the pandemic, the UK setting out its post-Brexit regulatory framework, and regulators seeking to get to grips with climate change and technological transformation, there is a plenty for us to do. Working with members of the IRSG, I am keen to set a policy agenda that enables the financial and related professional services industry to flourish while serving and supporting the wider economy.”

Both the City of London Corporation and TheCityUK welcomed Swinburne’s appointment, noting her extensive knowledge of the financial services industry and international regulation, as well as her proven track record in regulatory change. Swinburne played a pivotal role in shaping EU and global financial services legislation in her role as an MEP, including setting up EU supervisory bodies and the Capital Markets Union.

Gresham Hires Marc Cavell to Lead North America Business Development

Gresham Technologies has appointed Marc Cavell to spearhead business development across North America. Cavell brings over 10 years of fintech experience spanning corporate banking, financial messaging, payments, and cash management to Gresham, previously holding sales roles at Fundtech and Finastra, where he managed key accounts in the US market. He joins an existing group of data, technology, and regulatory experts at the firm, supporting Gresham in its mission to bring digital integrity, agility, and confidence to financial markets.

Gresham Hires Harvey Colborne to Drive Sales of Data Control Solutions

Gresham Technologies, a provider of solutions for data integrity and control, has appointed Harvey Colborne to lead business development and sales across the UK and Ireland. Colborne has experience of both the buy and sell-side following a career with roles at JPMorgan, Schroders, and BNY Mellon, as well as technology providers Interactive Data and IHS Markit. He joins Gresham at a time of growth for the company’s Clareti data control and connectivity solutions.

CFTC Adds Role of CDO in Reorganisation

The CFTC has hired a CDO and set up a division of data as part of a reorganisation designed to improve operational efficiency. Recognising the importance of centralised data, the reorganisation brings data practitioners together from operating units including the office of data and technology (which will cease to exist) and the division of market oversight. Dr. Tamara Roust, a new addition to the CFTC’s executive leadership team, joins from the role of CDO for the State of Illinois and will lead the newly created division of data. Other elements of the reorganisation are market participants, legal and administration divisions.

Gresham Technologies Continues APAC Expansion with Strategic Hire

Gresham Technologies Plc (Gresham) has appointed Joel Jerome as Director of Sales, APAC to grow the firm’s regional footprint. Globally, heightened market volatility, digital transformation and increased regulatory scrutiny are demanding better reconciliation and reporting of all data types. Jerome’s appointment in Singapore is an extension of Gresham’s commitment to meeting these challenges for existing and future customers across the APAC region. He will be responsible for driving Gresham’s commercial strategy and enabling legacy technology replacement and data migration projects.

Former Teradata CEO Oliver Ratzesberger, Appointed Chair of OpenCorporates

OpenCorporates, provider of a large open database of companies worldwide, has named former Teradata CEO Oliver Ratzesberger as the first chair of its board.

OpenCorporates has grown rapidly in the past nine years with its White Box company data attracting millions of visitors to its website every month. Users include financial institutions, government agencies and blue chip companies.

Ratzesberger brings over 30 years of experience in fast-scaling companies such as Teradata and eBay to OpenCorporates. His role is to accelerate growth and impact, and create a trusted and transparent global business environment.

Milestone Group Appoints APAC Head

Fund processing and oversight automation specialist Milestone has appointed Marian Azer as Managing Director for Asia Pacific (APAC) based in Sydney, Australia. Reporting to London based CEO Paul Roberts, Marian will have overall responsibility for market engagement, client success and go-to-market strategy across APAC, with particular emphasis on the Australian and New Zealand markets. Previously, Azer held the position of Managing Director at RBC Investor & Treasury Services, with responsibility for the APAC and Global Middle Office Product functions, as well as Chief Operating Officer, Global Client Coverage for Australia. Marian was previously Head of Product, Investor Services in Australia & New Zealand at J.P. Morgan Chase. She has also held senior roles at Mercer and BNP Paribas.

Etrading Software Expands Managed Service Offering with New Hires

London-based Etrading Software, an independent provider of technology-led solutions designed for financial institutions and industry initiatives, has announced three new hires in its London office, as well as a new operational layer in Asia. In Europe, the firm has strengthened its outsourced services delivery capability through the appointment of James Haskell as Business Operations Officer, David Lane as Technical Operations Officer and Will Palmer as Chief Information Security Officer. Haskell, who joined the firm in May 2020, has over 20 years’ experience working in financial services and operations in London, New York and Hong-Kong, including 13+ years with Goldman Sachs. Lane also has 20+ years’ experience in both tier one investment banking and derivatives exchange trading environments, including a cloud migration speciality. As the new Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), with over 25 years’ experience in IT within the financial services sector in both London and Asia, Palmer is tasked with building a company-wide security strategy for the firm.

Beeks Appoints Matthew Cretney as Head of Product Management

Beeks Financial Cloud and Velocimetrics have appointed Matthew Cretney as the head of product management. Cretney is an experienced technologist with decades of working in FinTech and infrastructure, with most of those years spent with Reuters/Refinitiv. At Thomson Reuters he was the technical product lead for Refinitiv’s SaaS multi-tenant white-labelled FX eTrading capability and oversaw the development of Refinitiv’s FX Spot and Forwards Matching services.

“With the ongoing investment in the Velocimetrics product set, Beeks and Velocimetrics are demonstrating a better, faster, cheaper answer to an increasingly complex set of requirements and I want to be part of that new future,” says Cretney.

Asset Control Targets Buy Side with Nielen Hire

Asset Control’s appointment of industry veteran Stef Nielen is part of a renewed focus on the buy side, following a number of contract wins in that segment. Nielen, who joins director, strategic development, hails from Axioma, where he was sales director, and has held sales-oriented roles with MSCI and RiskMetrics, among other buy-side oriented suppliers.

According to Martijn Groot, vice president of marketing and strategy at Asset Control, the company has chalked up a number of fund and wealth management contract deals this year, and is seeing significant interest in its AC Pass hosted service.

Groot says Nielen’s hire formalizes a strategic direction that was already under way. The AC Pass service – which supports a range of hosted capabilities – was developed with the buy side specifically in mind. Groot says Asset Control has now bedded down its relationship with a range of cloud providers, allowing it to offer varying hosting and service levels, using third-party professional services group eClerx to handle outsourced data management functions where required.

Nielen was most recently sales director at risk and analytics specialist Axioma Inc., which is now part of Deutsche Boerse’s Qontigo group. Before that he spent eight years at MSCI focusing on buy-side engagements. Asset Control says his appointment will allow the company “to more specifically focus on the requirements of its buy-side customers around self-controlled data sourcing, mastering, derivation and integration across the investment decision processes.”

With its recent new buy-side signings, the company says it “continues to see high levels of engagement from asset managers, hedge funds and institutional investors” driven by “industry developments around increasing data diversity, volumes and controls on data consumption; onboarding of alternative data sets; and increased use of ESG data, self-indexing and more granular reporting.”

In a separate development, Asset Control has teamed up with European consulting firm d-fine “to deliver enhanced data management, analytics and mastering to business users by integrating d-fine’s quantitative analytics (quant) capabilities with Asset Control’s new market data warehouse.”

Asset Control’s data warehouse enables a two-stage data management process and separate production mastering process, which is complemented by d-fine’s business expertise and quantitative modelling to help clients create market data infrastructures that combine modern data management technology with powerful data access and analytics.

This capability is exemplified by advanced curve and vole cube building capabilities, powered by d-fine’s pricing library Mosco, which facilitate a deeper integration of valuation and market data functions.

According to Asset Control, the new initiative seeks to address users’ growing demand for high-quality market data combined with precise and extensive meta-data for data-driven financial modelling in pricing, hedging, market analysis, risk and finance, as well as regulators’ and auditors’ growing need to scrutinize data preparation processes, data lineage and governance.

Neil Sandle, head of product management at Asset Control, says d-fine’s expertise in financial analytics and business expertise complements Asset Control’s Ops360 end-to-end mastering platform, its data lineage capability and its ACX market data warehouse solution, to provide analytics and derived pricing capabilities.