CloudMargin Makes Key Hires Despite Coronavirus Uncertainty

Amid the coronavirus pandemic and resulting global economic slowdown in which many companies are cutting costs and instating hiring freezes, cloud-based collateral management workflow tool provider CloudMargin is continuing to make strategic and high-level hires.

CloudMargin CEO Stuart Connolly says the crisis has not derailed his plans to fill key roles. In the past two months, David White and Miriam Marascio joined the firm as chief commercial officer and head of client services, respectively.

The vendor’s infrastructure team has added three additional critical staff, and Connolly says he has one more position to fill on the management team in the coming months.

The new employees are undergoing an unusual process of integration into the company. “It’s a really interesting time for people to start in an organization because they don’t go to an office, they don’t get to meet anyone in person; they get a laptop delivered to their home, they get on a few Zoom calls and off they go,” Connolly says.

CloudMargin started up in 2015 with 10 employees, and has since grown to around 85. To keep expanding, Connolly says, the vendor needs experienced people who have worked at mature market infrastructure companies.

Connolly says CloudMargin’s pipeline for the next year includes a number of providers of derivatives liquidity, including banks, joining the platform.

Executing these preplanned hires in such an unprecedented time was a strategic business decision for Connolly. “I want to protect the core of our business and the core of the team and the core of our franchise, because this is temporary. This will end,” he says. “Now is not the time for us to have a knee-jerk reaction.”

Connolly says he does not think making staff redundant is a good business strategy, so the firm has first sought to cut costs in other ways, including deferring tax payments and taking advantage of government loans associated with payroll.

“I think in the markets we operate in, there will be a relatively quick and strong rebound, and we’ve got to be in the position to make the most of that,” he says.