Raskin Heads to Processing Platform Vendor GBST

Raskin, who left SIX in Januaary after 28 years─20 of those as managing director and president of its US business─joined GBST on March 1. Reporting to Hong Kong-based global chief executive Stephen Lake, Raskin replaces Liz Bevan, who has spent 12 years in management roles at the vendor, including the last year heading US operations in New York, and who plans to return to Australia.

Raskin is tasked with increasing adoption of GBST's Syn~ product range in the US, where it currently focuses on automation of post-trade activities, such as firm-wide and regulatory reporting and processing, competing with the likes of Broadridge and SunGard.

"GBST is very keen to make sure that the US market is well-treated and well-supported.... The company realizes that to play in this market the right way, it needs to have a US presence, not just a representative office," Raskin says, adding that he aims to build that full presence by hiring not just in sales, but also in pre- and post-sales support roles, and also in high-level development and support functions, and will decide where to focus efforts initially within the next 60 to 90 days. "You can make a sale, but can you provide support, hand-holding, and so on? There's a big comfort factor for clients in having someone locally."

Though he declines to specify current or planned staff numbers for the US presence, Raskin says he expects a "fairly rapid" staffing increase. "We are just a handful now, but the plan is to have a fairly robust operation here within a year or two," he says.

In addition, GBST will seek further traction in North America by expanding its partnerships with other suppliers serving the financial industry, such as clearing providers and data providers. In fact, one of the vendor's existing partners is SIX, which provides financial tax transaction information to GBST's wealth management application, for which the vendors held a cross-promotion event last year.

"Partnerships will be very important for our growth business... and we've already identified a few things that we need to do in the near future," he says.