People Moves: Exegy, Luma, Capco, CAIS and more

Exegy and Vela announce leadership additions and changes

The ongoing merger of Exegy Incorporated and Vela Trading Systems has reached a key point in the combination of the companies. The company has announced additions to its integration management team including David Foster, who joins the combined firm as chief financial officer. Exegy’s former CFO, Krista Steward, has been named chief integration officer.

Foster comes to Exegy from Giact Systems, a Refinitiv company, where he also served as CFO. He was previously the CFO at Goodwill Central Texas and spent 12 years at Fiserv in senior leadership roles.

In parallel, Exegy also announced the departure of Jen Nayar (previous CEO of Vela Trading Systems), who has served as Exegy’s chief integration officer until now. Since the merger’s commencement, Nayar had been responsible for charting and monitoring the progress of the company’s integration efforts with the help of Exegy’s chief executive officer Jim O’Donnell and the leadership team.

Luma adds Arun Kumar as CTO

Luma Financial Technologies, a multi-issuer structured products and annuities platform, has hired Arun Kumar to the role of chief technology officer, reporting directly to Tim Bonacci, president and chief executive officer of Luma. Based in Luma’s New York City office, Kumar will oversee the development and dissemination of the firm’s technology, which is relied upon by financial professionals transacting in the structured product and annuity marketplaces, to drive better client outcomes.

He joins Luma from Citadel, where he was responsible for core platforms, enterprise data, and analytics. He was previously at Amazon, where he led a team of more than 450 engineers, product managers, scientists, and operation managers to build and maintain the machine-learning tools powering all of Amazon.com. Kumar also spent time as the global head of development at Thomson Reuters.

Capco appoints new partner in US data and analytics

Capco, a global technology and management consultancy, has appointed Glenn Kurban as a new partner in its US data and analytics practice, based out of Atlanta.

A senior business leader with more than 25 years of experience in data and analytics, data governance, enterprise program management, and software development, Kurban’s background includes data governance for multinational organizations and both data and enterprise technology strategy for large organizations. He joins Capco from global HR services company Randstad, where he was the head of global data governance. Prior to Randstad, he was a leader in Protiviti’s data and analytics practice.

CAIS names George Davies head of data 

CAIS, an alternative investment platform, has appointed George Davies as its new head of data.

In this role, Davies will be managing teams that develop predictive analytics and machine learning across all business functions, seeking to enhance outcomes for all constituents within the CAIS client base.

Davies most recently served as vice president of data for personal finance technology platform SmartAsset, where he managed the company’s data engineering and data science teams while scaling system architecture. He also served as chief data officer for fintech companies TraverseIQ and iSentium, and as a quantitative analyst for UBP Asset Management, A.R.T. Advisors, and Scotia Capital Markets.

Based in the company’s New York office, Davies will report to Shane Williams, chief technology officer.

Digitec adds to London office

Digitec, a provider of foreign-exchange pricing software, has announced the addition of four new employees in its London office. They will all report to Stephan von Massenbach, chief revenue officer.

George Procopiou joins as client and sales enablement manager. Procopiou has 14 years of experience in FX and FICC client management and previously worked at IHS Markit, Societe Generale, and Anglo Irish Bank.

Anil Jassi also joins as client and sales enablement manager. Jassi brings 12 years of FX corporate sales experience. He previously worked in electronic FX and FX corporate sales at Deutsche Bank and Moneycorp.

Liudmila Artyukhina joins as client and sales enablement manager. She transferred to London from the Hamburg office, where she previously worked for Digitec in IT and product management.

Ioulia Grant joins as product owner. Grant has 15 years of experience in e-trading product management and software development having worked at Bank of America, HSBC, and Lloyds Banking Group. She has also worked in relationship management at Hotspot and CMC Markets.

A key component of the firm’s global growth strategy, the London office brings Digitec closer to its London-based bank clients and prospects and offers access to many regional FICC trading hubs.

Encompass promotes Henry Balani to global head of industry and regulatory affairs

Encompass Corporation, a provider of know-your-customer and anti-money laundering software, has appointed Henry Balani to the role of global head of industry and regulatory affairs. He is responsible for developing and maintaining relationships with regulators, initiating research into key market issues, informing product strategy, and representing the company on a global scale.

This news comes just one month after Encompass Corporation announced its major expansion into the US, with company headquarters in New York.

In his previous role at Encompass Corporation, Balani directed client related delivery activities and ongoing use of the platform as head of delivery services and customer success.

Integral expands footprint among European banks and brokers

Integral, a cloud-based FX platform, announced two new hires to expand their footprint among European banks and brokers. Julian Elliot joins as senior product director, and Ina Patrascu joins as a director in the EMEA sales team.

Based in the UK, Elliot will take on the position of product lead on the Integral MarginFX platform, a product built on Integral’s cloud-based technology that allows leading brokers to deliver FX trading services to a global customer base. He has spent much of his career at trading tech provider Gold-i across the sales, finance, and operations teams.

With a deep background in institutional FX, Patrascu will focus on selling Integral’s Software-as-a-Service technology to European banks and brokers. She was previously a director at Edgewater Markets.