Fixed income pricing and analytics vendor 7 Chord has appointed Andrew Sundstrom as its Chief Science Officer, to lead the new phase of development and innovation of its BondDroid proprietary machine learning engine. Sundstrom brings 28 years of cross-disciplinary scientific and industry experience, at Nortel Networks, IBM Research, Morgan Stanley, and most recently at Nanotronics, where he developed artificial intelligence methods to make factories smarter and more resilient to errors and sophisticated cyberattacks. Sundstrom will be joined by Tinatin Nikvashvili, a 2021 graduate of NYU’s Center for Data Science MSc program.

Front-office solutions provider Broadway Technology has named Dan Romanelli as Head of Relationships, to drive business development initiatives and client relationship management, and to oversee a global team of sales and relationship managers. Romanelli is a 25-year FinTech veteran, and joins Broadway from USAM Group Inc, where he served as co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer. Previously in his career, he held senior roles at Delta Risk LLC, NYSE EuroNext and Merrill Lynch, and has led turnaround projects for FinTech software startups, launching both data product business lines and electronic execution products.

Multi-asset trading solutions provider TORA has expanded its presence in UK with a new London office to support continued growth, and two new hires. Peter Rank, Sales Manager, reporting to David Tattan, Head of Sales for Europe, joins TORA from Axe Trading and Bloomberg AIM, where he worked with clients across Europe. Chris Hopton, Professional Services Manager, was a Senior Account Manager at Trading Screen and SS&C, where he was responsible for delivery of fund solutions to clients. Chris will be joining a global team of professional service managers to help TORA to continue to provide software and workflow solutions, onboarding and client service to global institutional investors.

Mark Bannon has joined KX as president of sales, North America, with responsibility for the company’s growth in the region. He will partner the North America sales organisation across finance and other industries to meet growing need for ultra-high performance, real-time data analytics. Bannon joins KX from TIBCO and brings a mix of deep industry expertise in data management, including streaming analytics, as well as experience in enterprise software sales. Previously, Bannon led sales for StreamBase Systems before its acquisition by TIBCO and the integration of its streaming analytics offering.

Following its recent appointment of Michael Chin as CEO, front-office solutions vendor Broadway Technology has named industry veteran Bruce Boytim as Chief Operating Officer, to drive global strategy, go-to-market activities and client success as Broadway continues to evolve its offerings and expand its global footprint.

Boytim’s experience in the financial technology space includes roles as COO and CSO at Pico, where he was instrumental in growing the company, and vice president at the New York Stock Exchange, where he oversaw NYSE Technologies’ Risk Management and Managed Connectivity business and was involved in the launch of the Mahwah, NJ, data centre. Earlier in his career he served at Merrill Lynch, Wave Securities LLC, Northern Trust and TD Waterhouse.

Exchange infrastructure and matching engine provider Exberry has appointed Guy Melamed as CEO, as it looks to accelerate its growth and enter new marketplaces with its cloud-native technology, designed as a ‘Marketplace-as-a-Service’ solution. Exberry signed up its first customer, the London Derivatives Exchange, following its launch last year. Melamed previously held leadership roles at Finova Capital, a hedge fund for blockchain technology and digital assets, GreenRoad, specialists in in driver behaviour technology, and Ginger Software, a natural language processing and AI startup partially acquired by Intel in 2014.

KX has strengthened its global sales team with four new hires for its FX solutions business. The move – part of a broader expansion of its sales force under the leadership of new chief revenue officer Alan Coad – comes in response to heightened demand for FX technology and data solutions from both buy and sell side firms as liquidity becomes increasingly fragmented and data volumes continue to grow.

The new additions include Sharon Yuen and CJ Mhatre in Singapore, who will focus on extending the KX Financial Services business in the APAC region covering KX Platform Sales, including multi-asset surveillance and algo trading solutions. Karl Dunton joins the FX Sales team in New York, and Finn Jakobsen, based in Copenhagen, will lead FX Sales in the EMEA region.

Archax, the FCA regulated digital securities exchange, brokerage and custodian based in London, has appointed Malcolm Ford to lead its institutional sales activities in the run up to launch. Ford has over 20 years of experience in the institutional capital markets space, having worked for CMC Markets, Instinet, KCG, Morgan Stanley and Credit Agricole Cheuvreux. He has also worked for leading boutique firms including Assure Hedge, Linear Investments and Monsas.

Luminex Trading & Analytics, a buy side-owned trading venue delivering low-cost block executions, has hired Ilisa Gruber as sales and relationship manager. Based in Chicago, Gruber will oversee Luminex’s relationships with top clients among its more than 200 buy-side, institutional investors. She will be responsible for increasing engagement with existing clients as well as managing the firm’s continued growth in the US Midwest and other regions. Previously, Gruber spent 18 years at Liquidnet, where she was initially hired as the firm’s first sales trader and helped grow the business into a global institutional investment network. Earlier in her career, she worked at firms including Thomas Weisel Partners, Schroders & Company and CS First Boston.

Block trading continues to be a key element of the volatility and volume of the COVID era. In June 2020, the latest month for which FINRA data is available, Luminex saw an average natural block trade size of 46,000 shares, placing it among the leaders in FINRA’s 10k block trading category.

Equity capital marketplace Appital has appointed Greg Bennett and Stephane Carty as non-executive directors, following the recent appointment of Brian Guckian and Philipp Eberle to the firm’s management team. Bennett, previously Head of Capital Markets for EMEA and the Americas for Fidelity International, also brings sell side expertise as former Partner and Managing Director in Equity Capital Markets and Equity Syndicate for Cazenove and JPMorgan Cazenove. Carty founded Fir Post Capital, a global volatility fund, in 2010 and subsequently Blackheath Capital Management. Previously, he was head of European Principal Strategies at Wachovia Securities International.