People Moves: SS&C, IEX, Quandl, Pico, ACA, Orbital Insight, Thasos

Former Finra, SEC Exec Joins ACA Compliance

ACA Compliance, a regtech provider and compliance consultancy, has added Carlo Di Florio to its C-suite as global chief services officer (CSO). As CSO, he will manage various ACA silos, including regulatory compliance, cybersecurity and risk, and AML and financial crimes. In addition, he will contribute to new infrastructure and technology projects.

Di Florio joins from a six-year tenure at Finra, where he was chief risk and strategy officer, as well as co-chair of the Finra360 Project Management Office. Prior to that, he served as director of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Compliance Inspections, working to update the Risk Analysis and Surveillance Unit through leveraging new technology and data analytics capabilities. Before entering the public sector, he was a partner in PwC’s Financial Services Risk and Regulatory Practice.

IEX Co-Founder, COO to Retire

John Schwall, co-founder and COO of the Investors Exchange (IEX), will retire by the end of the year. His duties, which include overseeing market operations, information security, and quality assurance, will be taken on by other IEX executives: Ronan Ryan, co-founder and president; Rob Park, co-founder and CTO; and Sara Furber, CFO.

Since IEX’s founding 2012, Schwall has helped build the exchange through scaling internal operations and working to understand and solve structural market inefficiencies. Prior to IEX, his career spanned more than 20 years at institutions such as RBC Capital Markets, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Grant Thornton, and Pershing.

Quandl Appoints New Head of Data Strategy and Sourcing

Nasdaq’s Quandl has hired Evan Reich to lead the company’s data strategy and sourcing efforts. Reich will work to find new alternative data sources relevant to the vendor’s customers.  

He joins from hedge fund BlueMountain Capital Management, where he held the same title. There, he managed data engineering, all data vendor relationships, and the firm’s alternative, market and reference data. Prior to joining BlueMountain, Reich was one of the first data engineering hires at Millennium Management.

Reich has worked across the capital markets ecosystem, including in private equity and investment banking research, and was a contributor to the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), which is used to view gravity waves.

Orbital Insight Adds to Leadership Team with Head of Product

Orbital Insight, a California-based firm specializing in geospatial analytics, has appointed Jens Tellefson as senior vice president of product and design. In his role, he will lead its global product strategy for its recently launched GO platform, which enables investors, corporates and governments to make policy and business decisions supported by geospatial analytics.

Tellefson joins Orbital from data platform Quantifind, where he was vice president of products. Prior to that, he was chief product officer for NetBase Solutions, which uses artificial intelligence for social media analytics. He has held similar roles in product development at companies such as Vendavo, Callidus Software, and Trilogy. In addition to those, Tellefson spent two years at McKinsey & Co, advising companies on corporate strategy.

Pico Poaches ITG CEO for Board Seat

To support its growth and innovation strategies, Pico has appointed Francis Troise to its board of directors. He will advise Pico’s executive team on continued global expansion and further client penetration across investment banks, institutional asset managers and hedge funds.

Troise most recently served as president and CEO of Investment Technology Group (ITG), where he helped lead the acquisition of ITG by Virtu Financial earlier this year. Prior to joining ITG, Troise was managing director and global head of JP Morgan’s cross-asset execution services, implementing strategy and building global sales, along with trading and product management teams responsible for overhauling the global electronic equities and electronic futures and options execution businesses. Prior to JP Morgan, he held senior leadership roles in electronic trading at Barclays Capital and Lehman Brothers.

Troise is based in New York.

SS&C Hires Schachter for Relationship Management Head

SS&C Technologies has named Craig Schachter as a managing director and head of relationship management at DST Financial Services, Americas. In his role, he will help to build stronger client relationships, deliver strategic client solutions and maximize the full capabilities in SS&C’s acquisition of DST.

He joins the firm from Finastra, where he served in a number of capacities, but most recently as global head of the fintech ecosystem. He also held global and strategic leadership roles at FIS, SunGard and Xcitek. In his 25 years in the financial technology industry, Schachter has specialized in building and mentoring high-performing teams.

Schachter will report to Mike Sleightholme, senior vice president and general manager, DST.

Thasos CEO Steps Down, Scales Back Workforce

As reported by Business Insider, Greg Skibiski, co-founder and CEO of alternative data company Thasos, has stepped down, and the vendor has cut roughly two-thirds of its staff. Skibiski has moved into a role of non-executive chairman, but will still take part in managing daily operations.

Throughout August and half of September, the 40-person staff was reduced to just 12. Skibiski is also the founder and former CEO and chairman of Sense Networks, a New York-based company that uses machine learning to create business insights from mobile phone location and carrier call pattern data. Sense Networks was acquired by Yellow Pages (YP), owned by Dex Media.