People Moves: Crux, Templum, Itiviti, CFTC

Industry Vet Nazdan Joins Templum

Brian Nadzan has joined Templum, a provider of blockchain-based trading services for the private markets, as its new chief technology officer (CTO). In that role, Nadzan will focus on building new solutions to provide connectivity and liquidity for alternative assets, such as digital and private securities, and manage the firm’s technology team.

Nadzan most recently worked at AlphaPoint, where he served as the company’s chief development officer. Prior to that, he spent eight years at TradingScreen, first as chief development officer, then later as chief data officer. Nadzan has also been IT director for Lava Trading, responsible for developing its buy-side execution and order management systems, as well as a managing director at Bloomberg, spearheading the all trading and transaction products.

Nadzan will carry out his new position in New York.

Crux Focuses On Potential Partnerships With New Hire

Crux Informatics, a provider of data pre-processing and onboarding services, has appointed its former consultant Asif Alam full-time as its head of partnerships and alliances. In addition to joining the firm’s leadership team, Alam will oversee relationships and structure deals with strategic partners whose offerings are complementary to Crux’s.

Alam joined Reuters (now Refinitiv) in 2001 as a technical account manager. During his more than 17 years at the data giant, he held other titles, including global head of machine readable news and news analytics, head of enterprise capabilities and market development, Americas, and global head of technology practice.

Alam is based in San Francisco, CA, and reports to Crux chief executive Philip Brittan.

Byron Joins FIA From Fidessa

The Futures Industry Association (FIA) announced the recruitment of Don Byron as the association’s head of global industry operations and execution. Byron will be responsible for developing solutions related to clearing, execution, cybersecurity, and market structure issues, and will be the principal FIA liaison with the Divisions and Committees representing these issue areas.

Byron joins from from Fidessa/ION Markets in Chicago, where he served as product manager for Fidessa’s derivatives global trading platform. He spent the near six years before that at Barclays Investment Bank in New York, as a product manager and vice president within the Agency Derivatives Services Division. Byron has also been a senior business analyst and senior consultant for Northern Trust’s Investment Outsourcing Division.

He will be based in Chicago, IL.

Instinet Adds One For EMEA Execution Sales

Nomura’s Instinet has named Seema Arora head of execution sales for the EMEA region, responsible for leading a team responsible for selling all Instinet execution products and offering related strategies for clients.

Arora hails from Kepler Cheuvreux, where she spent 10 years and most recently held a similar role in execution sales. Prior to that, she served as global head of portfolio trading also at Kepler. She has also held a variety of senior derivatives and equities sales positions at JP Morgan and Dresdner Kleinwort Benson.

Arora will be based in London, reporting directly to Instinet chief executive Richard Parsons.

Itiviti Appoints New CFO

Trading and compliance solutions provider Itiviti has appointed Peter van Tiggelen as chief financial officer (CFO) to oversee all finance aspects of the vendor, replacing Tony Falck, who has been at the company for six years. Based in London, van Tiggelen will assume his role Sept. 2.

Van Tiggelen has held CFO positions for the last three companies he’s worked for, including healthcare technology company CRF Health and AmCO, a specialty pharmaceuticals company.

CFTC’s First CIO To Return To Private Sector

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced the departure of Daniel Gorfine, the agency’s first chief innovation officer and director of LabCFTC, a platform to inform the commission’s policies for new financial technologies . He will officially leave his post in mid-August to return to the private sector in an undisclosed role. Gorfine also served as the designated federal officer of the CFTC’s Technology Advisory Committee.

Gorfine joined the commission in 2017, and over his tenure, created CFTC primers on virtual currencies and smart contracts, spearheaded the creation of the LabCFTC Accelerator, focused on tech innovation competitions and internal tech trials, and held the first CFTC Fintech Forward conference.

Gorfine is located in Washington D.C., and has also been an adjunct professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center, and an adjunct fellow and director of financial markets policy and legal counsel at the Milken Institute.