People Moves: Charles River, Causality Link, Preqin, and more

Charles River appoints Caroline O’Shaughnessy as new Emea head

Charles River Development, a State Street company, has appointed Caroline O’Shaughnessy as head of Emea. She will be responsible for all business oversight within the region and collaboration with State Street Alpha, State Street’s global front- to back-office platform.

O’Shaughnessy joins Charles River Development from the London Stock Exchange Group where she was chief client officer and global head of sales and marketing of its information services division, and group head of its global strategic account program. She was previously managing director and head of global sales at the Depository Trust and Clearing Corp. (DTCC) and enterprise global head of 30 party alliances at Thomson Reuters.

Causality Link grows team with addition of Joseph Simonian as technical advisor

Causality Link, an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven financial information technology provider, has added veteran Bayesian networks (BNs) and natural language processing (NLP) expert Joseph Simonian as technical advisor. He will help the firm maximize the possibilities of BN, NLP, and causal modeling, and introduce Causality Link’s current and prospective partners to the capabilities of the firm’s platform.

Simonian is the founder and CIO of Autonomous Investment Technologies, which provides AI and machine learning (ML) consulting services and builds custom quantitative models for financial firms. Over the last 15 years, he has held senior portfolio management and research positions in several asset management firms, including Natixis Investment Managers, Fidelity, Pimco, and JP Morgan Asset Management.

Preqin announces Christoph Knaack as new CEO

Preqin, a provider of financial data and information to the alternative assets market, has appointed Christoph Knaack as the company’s CEO, effective January 1, 2022. He is currently Preqin’s chief strategy and product officer. Knaack will focus on leading Preqin through its next growth phase, as the company moves toward serving its customers through the entire private market investment lifecycle, from fundraising and investor relations to deal origination, due diligence, and portfolio monitoring.

From 2022, Preqin founder and current CEO Mark O’Hare will continue his active involvement as a member of Preqin’s board of directors, and as the company’s principal shareholder, supporting Preqin’s executive team with strategic guidance, as well as engaging with customers, partners, and other stakeholders in the market.

Knaack joined Preqin in 2020 and has since served on Preqin’s executive committee. Before he joined Preqin, he was an investment professional at hedge fund Davidson Kempner Capital Management, and has worked in private equity at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and investment banking at Morgan Stanley.

Horizon appoints Stéphane Sebah as senior business development manager

Horizon Software, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider of electronic trading solutions and algorithmic technology, has appointed Stéphane Sebah as senior business development manager, as part of the growing Emea sales team. He will be tasked with addressing market challenges by accelerating the business growth of Horizon software in the region.

Sebah was previously an institutional sales trader at Square Global Markets and GFI Group.