Samantha Miller Joins Visible Alpha as CPO

MiFID II investment research specialist Visible Alpha has appointed Samantha Miller to the newly created post of Chief Product Officer. Miller joins from Dun & Bradstreet where she was Vice President of Global Product Portfolio Strategy and Management. Prior to Dun & Bradstreet, she led a division at LexisNexis as a General Manager and VP of Product. Miller will oversee product strategy and management for the company’s entire product suite. She joins a growing executive team at the firm, which last year welcomed Mark Hale (formerly of FactSet) as Chief Operating Officer and Rodney Pederson as Chief Revenue Officer.

Garry McClure Joins Delta Capital as Head of KYC

Garry McClure has joined the London office of financial services professional services firm Delta Capital to head up the firm’s KYC business, starting from September 2019. McClure was a previously a managing director at HSBC responsible for global KYC operations across investment, commercial and retail banking. Prior to that he headed up client onboarding at Barclays Capital and was an Executive Director in UBS’s global banking and markets operations business covering KYC and client data.“Key areas of banking are being disruptedby new technologies and business models, yet none more so than the area of client onboarding,” said McClure.

First Derivatives Founder Brian Conlon Dies

Brian Conlon, the Northern Irish founder and CEO of the £1 billion+ FinTech firm First Derivatives, lost his battle with cancer on July 28, 2019 at the age of 53. Conlon started at KPMG and worked briefly at Morgan Stanley and software firm Sunguard before starting First Derivatives. He listed the company in 2002 but remained its major shareholder. The firm began its search for a new CEO in May, when Conlon was first diagnosed. The search is ongoing.

NeoXam Hires New Data Expert

Buy-side software provider NeoXam has appointed Philipp Sfeir to head up its DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) business. Sfeir was most recently Head of Data Management at Zürcher Kantonalbank, one of the top four banks in Switzerland, and since 2016 has been President of the Swiss Information Providers User Group (SIPUG). Florent Fabre, COO of NeoXam, says: “The DACH region is becoming an increasingly crucial region in the global financial picture. As we continue to grow globally, we’re thrilled to be attracting experienced and determined individuals like Philipp to support us in our goals.”

Fenergo Raises €66 Million

Irish regulatory compliance firm Fenergo has raised €66 million in investment, according to documents filed with the Companies and Registration Office. The firm is believed to have raised the financing by selling shares to CSC Computer Science Holdings, an affiliate of US-based DXC Technology. DXC General Manager Edward Ho has joined Fenergo as a Director, according to a separate filing made by the company.

Fenergo recorded sales of €57.7 million and a pre-tax profit of €2.6 million for the year ended March 2018.

Claudia Rodriguez Joins Pega

Digital transformation specialist Pega Systems has appointed Claudia Rodriguez as inclusion and diversity (I&D) leader, based out of the company’s Cambridge, Mass. headquarters. Her role will focus on creating I&D talent management initiatives with a focus on talent attraction, development, engagement, and retention. She was most recently senior manager of inclusion and diversity in Accenture’s Global Center of Expertise.

Financial Machineries Makes Three Strategic Appointments

Financial Machineries, a provider of data lineage, sourcing, digital rights management and commercialisation of contributed market data, has appointed Keiren Harris, Frank Verstraeten and Daniel Muri to its team. They bring industry experience, regional insight, and networks of professional contacts from across APAC and continental Europe to the company, which is accelerating its ambition to become a strategic partner to globally systematic important banks (G-SIBS) creating data. Financial Machineries helps banks control the IP of their data, cut costs of data operations, and transform publishing processes to to drive commercialisation while remaining within regulatory bounds.

Refinitiv names William Leahey as Head of Regulatory Compliance for Wealth Management

Refinitiv has appointed William Leahey as head of regulatory compliance for wealth management. In this role, Leahey will lead all regulatory activities for the wealth management business, identifying key regulatory developments, risks and initiatives for customers.

Before joining Refinitiv, Leahey was vice president and assistant general counsel of the operations and technology group at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA). Prior to joining SIFMA, Leahey spent five years in the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s (FINRA’s) market regulation department developing and implementing high yield market surveillance tools and managing FINRA’s coverage of NYSE rules.

Leahey joins a team of compliance and regulatory professionals at Refinitiv and will engage with regulatory bodies, customers, industry groups, key partners and industry leaders to ensure regulators hear the voices of Refinitiv’s customers when making rules and providing regulatory guidance.

Ascent RegTech Hires New CEO

Ascent RegTech on April 15 announced the hiring of Arbela Takhsh as Chief Operating Officer. Arbela has held various engineering and operational leadership roles at Motorola, Google, Comcast, and most recently as Senior Vice President of Operations Excellence, Quality, and Data Analytics & Business Intelligence at Gogo. The Ascent team has grown rapidly since the company’s inception in 2015, and following a successful $6 million Series A round in 2018. Within the past year, the team has grown to over 35 full-time employees, and clients/relationships now include ING, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Wells Fargo Accelerator and others.

DTCC Adds Three New Members to Board of Directors

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), a provider of post-trade infrastructure for the global financial services industry, on April 9, 2019 announced the election of three new members to DTCC’s Board of Directors during the firm’s Annual Shareholders Meeting. The new directors are Kieran Hanrahan from JP Morgan Chase’s Corporate and Investment Bank, Graeme McEvoy from Morgan Stanley, and Joseph Noto from Barclays.