People Moves: Baton, Broadridge, BNY Mellon, Eventus, and more

Jerome Kemp appointed president of fast-growing fintech Baton Systems

Baton Systems, a post-trade system provider for capital markets, has appointed Jerome Kemp as president. Kemp will lead Baton’s growth across markets, leveraging valuable international experience gained in senior leadership positions held in Paris, London, and Tokyo during his career.

Prior to joining Baton, Kemp was global head of futures, OTC clearing, and FX prime brokerage at Citi, where he built the cleared derivatives business to a position of global leadership. Kemp was also chair of the Futures Industry Association board from 2018 to 2020. In addition to his most recent role at Citi, Kemp previously spent 18 years at JP Morgan, where he rose to global co-head of the futures and options and OTC clearing business.

Kemp will work closely with Baton founder and CEO, Arjun Jayaram, in his new role.

Broadridge adds Mike Johnson as VP and global product manager of derivatives clearing

Broadridge has hired Mike Johnson as vice president and global product manager of derivatives clearing. In his new role, Johnson will be responsible for the continual enhancement, growth, and quality of Broadridge’s global cleared derivatives platform, and leveraging strategic client and industry partnerships. He will also be responsible for ensuring clients receive first-class service and the support of market experts.

Johnson formerly served as the global head of collateral management and business development for Bank of America.

BNY Mellon adds new hires in asset servicing business

Hadley Stern, David Schwed, and Benjamin Duve have joined BNY Mellon’s Asset Serving business in various roles to support digital asset technology, digital custody, and blockchain.

Hadley Stern has joined as global head of digital custody. Stern will be responsible for overseeing business and product development for BNY Mellon’s digital custody offering. Hadley brings experience at the nexus of digital assets and traditional finance to the role, most recently serving as the head of Amazon Web Services’ Innovation Labs. Prior to this, he was COO of blockchain software solutions provider, Bloq, and spent nearly two decades in a variety of product and innovation roles at Fidelity Investments, including serving as senior vice president of digital assets. In his new role, he will report to Caroline Butler, global head of custody.

David Schwed has joined as global head of digital asset technology. Schwed will be responsible for integrating IT strategy for BNY Mellon’s digital asset offerings across the enterprise, ensuring maximum coordination and information sharing across all facets of the organization as they work together to meet clients’ needs. Prior to re-joining BNY Mellon, Schwed served as chief architect of Galaxy Digital’s information security program, and in an array of roles with Fortune 500 firms including Citi, Merrill Lynch, and Marsh. In his new role, he will report to Jeremy Dobrick, head of asset servicing operations and technology.

Benjamin Duve has joined as director of digital assets and blockchain. Duve will play a key role in advancing BNY Mellon’s digital strategy in EMEA and will work across the enterprise to develop innovative offerings as clients’ digital asset needs continue to evolve, with offerings spanning cryptocurrencies, digital cash, and various forms of tokenized assets. He will also partner with BNY Mellon’s client teams to help clients in the German and broader European markets navigate the emerging field of digital assets and related technical and regulatory considerations. Duve joins BNY Mellon from Commerzbank, where he was head of digital assets and custody. He is based in Frankfurt, Germany and will report to Mike Demissie, head of digital assets and advanced solutions.

Eventus announces key hires in EMEA

Eventus Systems, a global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance and market risk solutions, has announced several key hires in Europe as part of the firm’s continued growth in the region. In the new roles are Ollie Cadman as chief product officer, and David Griffiths and Martin Appiah, both as directors of regulatory affairs.

Based in Stockholm, Cadman reports to Eventus CEO Travis Schwab, while Griffiths and Appiah—both based in the UK—report to Joseph Schifano, the firm’s global head of regulatory affairs.

Cadman joins the company in the newly-created position of chief product officer, responsible for Eventus’ entire product portfolio, and for putting in place a framework to support its company and product expansion following its recent $30 million Series B fundraising. With responsibility for Eventus’ product, user experience and client success business areas, accounting for 20% of the vendor’s workforce, Cadman will oversee the build-out of new financial risk products and help the company scale.

Appiah will help ensure that Eventus’ growing client base in the EMEA region are able to meet the evolving demands of local regulations and client risk assessments through the firm’s Validus platform. Griffiths, who has experience in the UK, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific regions, will spearhead the firm’s client implementation program globally to ensure new clients maximize the effectiveness of the surveillance procedures, resources, and flexibility available to them in Validus.

Before joining Eventus in August, Cadman spent almost five years at Vela, which was recently acquired by ticker plant appliance vendor Exegy, in roles including chief product officer, global head of product management, and head of product and strategy in EMEA. Prior to Vela, Cadman was senior product manager for global connectivity at Intercontinental Exchange, real-time product manager at Morningstar, and a senior consultant at Citihub. Before that, he was VP of electronic trading technology at JP Morgan, he worked in product development at London Stock Exchange-owned derivatives market Turquoise, and spent more than five years at the LSE as business development manager and product manager for real-time data.

Prior to joining Eventus, Griffiths was head of trade surveillance for SteelEye since 2020. He previously was with Cider Barn Group consulting, serving as product director for a strategic partnership between Nasdaq and Digital Reasoning. Griffiths has also held senior compliance strategy and trade surveillance roles at JP Morgan Chase, Standard Chartered Bank, and Oracle Mantas.

Appiah most recently served as compliance surveillance subject matter expert at Royal Bank of Canada after serving as lead consultant for compliance surveillance remediation and earlier as compliance surveillance officer for Nomura International. He also held roles in risk advisory, compliance, and surveillance at global consulting firm Deloitte, Santander Group Corporate Bank, BGC/Cantor Fitzgerald Europe, BNP Paribas, and JP Morgan Chase.

Hawk AI appoints Georg Hauer as COO/CFO to help fuel global expansion

Hawk AI, a global software platform for banks, fintechs, and payment companies supporting the fight against financial crime and money laundering, has appointed Georg Hauer as chief operating officer and chief financial officer. In his role at Hawk AI, Hauer will be responsible for driving the expansion into new markets worldwide, as well as go-to-market-strategy, marketing, communications, human resources, and finance. His appointment will be effective November 1.

Hauer joins from Berlin-based neobank N26, where he was general manager of German-speaking markets and Northern Europe, the bank’s largest region. He was also managing director of N26’s technology and innovation center in Vienna.

Prior to N26, he was a general manager at Uber. Before that he worked at Boston Consulting Group, where he focused on technology and digitalization projects with global institutions including major European banks.

QuantHouse updates its leadership team 

QuantHouse, a provider of end-to-end systematic trading solutions including market data feeds and infrastructure services, and part of Iress, has announced senior leadership changes as the next step in its full integration into Iress.

As part of this transition, Pierre Feligioni, chief executive officer and co-founder, departs QuantHouse to pursue new ventures. Arthur Tricoire becomes general manager of commercial and Sebastien Tiphine moves to head of products.

These changes position the firm to continue to execute on behalf of over 500 global clients through closer alignment with Iress. The leadership team will be instrumental in developing opportunities within the wider Iress ecosystem.

Solactive hires Alex Steiner as new chief information officer

Solactive has tapped Alex Steiner as its new chief information officer. In his role, Steiner will assume responsibility for expanding Solactive’s proprietary indexing platform and IT infrastructure strategy across Solactive’s global platform and business. Alex will join CEO Steffen Scheuble, CMO Timo Pfeiffer, and CRO Christian Vollmuth, on Solactive’s management board.

Before joining Solactive, Steiner worked for the German fashion house Peek & Cloppenburg for two years, serving as CTO in Düsseldorf. His responsibilities included the oversight of the entire IT infrastructure from business operations and webshops. Prior to that, he worked for the Chicago-based company Capital Markets Trading as CIO, where he oversaw teams in Frankfurt, London, and Kyiv integrate AI into trading strategies. Steiner started his professional career at Deutsche Borse, covering different roles in research and advisory, service management, and the company’s data science content lab.