Volante today announced the opening of a City of London office for sales and customer support across Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Heading the office will be Fiona Hamilton with Christopher Taylor and Mark Chapman as sales directors.
“The inquiries we are fielding from the EMEA markets clearly indicate a desperate need for high quality messaging products,” said Vijay Oddiraju, Volante CEO. “This is why we made a decision to expand our operations. We have attracted an extraordinary London staff of data messaging experts, who will be supporting existing and new customer relationships.”
Named Volante’s vice president of EMEA operations, Hamilton brings a notable background of business building and financial technology expertise to the role. One of the best-known executives in the data messaging world, she was co-founder and director of Century 24 Solutions (C24), with continuing involvement in the product line of messaging solutions as the firm was acquired by IONA technologies, which was subsequently acquired by Progress Software. Previously, she held senior executive positions at Mercator, Braid Systems Limited, and Misys Wholesale Banking Systems. She has worked continuously with SWIFT since the mid-1980s, and participated as a contributor in the development of ISO 20022, ISITC and FpML.
“No one has deeper expertise than Volante or works harder to provide the best products for integration of SWIFT, trade data and other financial messages,” said Fiona Hamilton. “As a former competitor, I know the huge need among capital markets firms for this level of excellence in products and service. I look forward to helping Volante deepen their presence throughout EMEA, one customer success after another.”
Joining sales for the London office is Taylor. A veteran of three decades of business development including 12 years targeting financial services firms, he was most recently employed by IONA as the business development director selling data services/messaging solutions in the financial markets. He brings a wealth of experience with tier one financial institutions.
Filling out the sales team is Chapman, who brings more than 20 years experience in business development and account management in financial services and IT. Before joining Volante, he oversaw business development operations in the UK for Acuma, winning and managing large account relationships with major financial services firms and vendors. Earlier, he held sales and account management positions with ResearchSummary, CSK Software and Micrognosis.
