People Moves: Exegy, Aquis Exchange, Xenomorph, and more

Exegy Expands Sales, Product Teams to Fuel Growth

St Louis, MO-based hardware ticker plant and feed handler vendor Exegy has made a trio of new hires in sales, marketing, and product management to respond to increased demand for real-time data infrastructure, historical market data and predictive analytics.

The vendor has hired Guy Cirillo in New York as SVP of sales, responsible for sales of all Exegy solutions. He reports to Exegy COO Rod Arbaugh. Cirillo was most recently business development manager for the Fixnetix business at DXC Technology, served as senior vice president of sales for FinTech Studios on a consulting basis, and was head of partnership sales at Quantitative Brokers. Prior to that, he spent 12 years at Credit Suisse, including as global head of business development for its Advanced Execution Services business line, and also held sales and marketing roles at ITG, Optimark Technologies and Bridge Information Systems.

Exegy has also hired another former Fixnetix staffer, Greg Aletti, as product manager for its mutualized service offerings, reporting to VP of product management Jason White. At Fixnetix, Aletti served as technical account manager and service delivery manager for the Americas, prior to which he spent a stint in technical sales for enterprise solutions at Bloomberg, served as a sales business analyst at Equinix, and spent 7.5 years at Interactive Data, including as a technical manager and sales engineer, and lead quality assurance engineer for its managed solutions division. Before that, he was a major accounts network engineer at S&P Comstock, prior to Comstock’s sale to Interactive Data.

Also joining Exegy is Craig Meyer, a former marketing executive at Tacony Corp., Energizer Holdings, and Nestle Purina. As vice president of marketing, reporting to CTO David Taylor, Meyer will build awareness and customer engagement across its historical and real-time data, and its Signum predictive analytics.

Aquis Exchange Appoints Deirdre Somers to Its Board                            

Aquis Exchange has appointed Deirdre Somers to its board as an independent non-executive director.

Somers was chief executive officer of the Irish Stock Exchange from 2007 to 2018. The exchange was sold in March 2018 to Euronext NV, and she stepped down as CEO of Euronext Dublin in September 2018. She has held a position as an independent non-executive director and audit committee member for BlackRock iShares since April 2019.

Somers was president of the Federation of European Securities Exchanges between 2015 and 2018, and is also a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland.

Xenomorph Hires Neil Sheppard As Director of Sales and Relationship Management

Xenomorph has appointed Neil Sheppard as a director of sales and relationship management.

In the new role Sheppard will predominantly focus on the flourishing EMEA and APAC business. He will be based in London and report to the CEO Ron Zeghibe. 

Previously, Sheppard was managing director at FIS’ XSP, seeing the company through the SunGard acquisition in 2012, and a merger with FIS in 2015. Before joining XSP, Sheppard was product and business development director at Magenta One Ltd, where he was responsible for developing its Securities Class Actions business globally. He has also worked at Union Bank of Switzerland, Morgan Stanley, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, ABN Amro Equities (UK) Ltd, and Citibank.  

Substantive Research Taps Jonathan Furse As Chief Technology Officer

Substantive Research has announced the appointment of Jonathan Furse as chief technology officer.

In the new role, Furse is responsible for the firm’s digital product strategy, growing the in-house team of developers and managing its outsourced technology partners. Since his appointment, he has secured the Cyber Essentials certification for the company and hired a new senior developer in the Edinburgh office. Substantive Research also recently appointed a data analyst, with plans to hire a further programmer by the end of 2020.

Furse was previously at the Financial Times, where he was technical director with responsibility for subscription management, publishing and data analytics platforms and leading teams across Asia and Europe.

Gresham Technologies Makes New Board Appointments

Gresham Technologies has appointed Jenny Knott and Ruth Wandhöfer as non-executive directors.

Knott is the co-founder of FinTech Strategic Advisors, where she has worked extensively with fintech start-ups.

Wandhöfer’s career includes spearheading regulatory and market strategy for treasury and trade solutions at Citi, advising the European Banking Federation on securities services and payments and serving as a non-executive director of the London Stock Exchange.

Kevin Wilson Joins Integral as Managing Director for Business Development

Integral, a foreign exchange technology provider, has hired Kevin Wilson as managing director for business development.

He will be responsible for managing new business initiatives and senior client relationships.

Wilson is a former Citi executive, where his most recent roles included positions within the futures, clearing and FXPB division and as a founding member of the group’s Margin FX Trading business, which he orchestrated the sale of in 2015. Prior to this, he held roles within the group’s eCommerce and FX corporate sales divisions.

Exabel Makes Senior Hires

Exabel has hired Jan Bratteberg as chief commercial officer and Nathaniel Cohn as VP of North America and head of data partnerships.

As CCO, Bratteberg will expand the commercial strategy of the company. He joins from San Francisco-based investment management firm Algert Global, where he has been a partner since 2016. Prior to this, he was a managing director at BlackRock, where he spent 17 years in a variety of investment roles.

Cohn will drive Exabel’s US expansion and lead its data partnerships team, following on from the firm’s successful partnership with 1010data this year. He spent seven years at GfK, a boutique alternative data research firm, leading the team that delivered data-driven insights to buy-side and corporate clients. Most recently he was director of data provider partnerships and solutions at Adaptive Management, an alternative data aggregator and solutions provider.