SWIFT Fills Top Marketing Post
Financial messaging services cooperative SWIFT has named Javier Pérez-Tasso as the replacement for its former head of marketing, Gottfried Leibbrandt, who moved up to the post of CEO earlier this month. Pérez-Tasso will take on the role of Marketing Executive and will report to Leibbrandt.
Pérez-Tasso will be responsible for developing and implementing strategic initiatives to drive growth across SWIFT’s business lines, officials say. His team will focus on core areas such as correspondent banking, clearing and settlement and market infrastructures. He will also lead efforts to boost SWIFT’s efforts in sanctions, reference data, matching and cloud services.
Pérez-Tasso’s previous role was as head of products and services and he led an international team focused on reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO) for customers. He has also served as head of Western Europe, Middle East and Africa and built a team across six offices that contributed to the growth of a region that now represents 35% of SWIFT’s business.
Pérez-Tasso, who joined SWIFT in 1995, will be based at SWIFT’s headquarters in Belgium.
SWIFT announced in May that former CEO Lázaro Campos would be stepping down by the end of June to be replaced by Leibbrandt, who is a key architect of the SWIFT2015 initiatives for growth.
— Eugene Grygo
Princeton Financial Appoints DVS Product Director
Frank Gärtner,
product director,
DVS Fund Data Warehouse
Princeton Financial Systems (PFS) has hired Frank Gärtner from the Comit consultancy as its new product director for its DVS fund data warehouse, a platform for data management, analysis and reporting. Gärtner’s DVS responsibilities also include DVS Solutions, the software for producing reports from the DVS data warehouse.
Gärtner, who has more than 20 years of experience developing software, began working as DVS product director in late May and is based in Frankfurt, Germany. He reports to Jim Dobbie, head of product management. Gärtner will identify new opportunities around the globe for the DVS offerings as well as oversee product consistency and development. At Comit, Gärtner served as a senior consultant and was responsible for overlooking the investment management team. He says much of his work there involved the customized development of software systems.
For PFS, Gärtner says he will enhance the integration of DVS among the vendor’s offerings, namely by providing customers with easier access to data via such methods as standardized data input adaptors. In addition, he says he hopes to add more “out of the box business functionality,” for the DVS model as well as enhancing the DVS publisher.
Gärtner says that this recently redesigned position is a “natural fit” for him as he views himself as a “connector” between the business side of financial technology and the software developers.
“I want to steer the development efforts to a seamless integration with other systems of PFS and also steer development efforts of Cloud technology,” Gärtner says. He also plans to establish tighter customer relationships, specifically in terms of early communication about products and the management of future requirements.
Based in Princeton, New Jersey, PFS is a global provider of investment strategy and data management software.
NYSE Euronext Staffs Up for NYSE Clearing
NYSE Euronext recently appointed Patrick Birley as chief commercial officer for LiffeClear, which will be expanded to become a new clearinghouse, NYSE Clearing, slated to launch in London in June 2013. NYSE Clearing will be “a fully integrated central counterparty (CCP), serving multiple markets,” officials say.
“Patrick is as excited as we are about the clearing opportunities that lie ahead, and about collaborating with our customers— many of whom he knows already—as we roll out pioneering, value-added clearing solutions” says Mark Ibbotson, executive vice president of global clearing at NYSE Euronext in a prepared statement.
Birley joins NYSE Euronext from the London Stock Exchange (LSE), where he served briefly as a senior advisor. He also worked as CEO of the European Climate Exchange from 2007 to 2010.
Advent Software’s President Takes on CEO Role
Peter Hess,
CEO,
Advent Software
Starting last week, Peter Hess, Advent Software’s president since December 2008, has taken on the post of the company’s CEO, according to the succession plan Advent announced this past January. Hess will serve in both roles for the investment management software provider.
Hess takes over for Stephanie DiMarco, Advent founder and CEO, who returned to the top post in 2002. DiMarco will continue to serve as a director on Advent’s board and will serve as an advisor to Hess and others in senior management.
As CEO, Hess will be responsible for the marketing, sales, services and support for its asset management and global accounts groups, and will oversee the further integration of Black Diamond, a portfolio management software provider for financial advisors that Advent acquired in April 2011.
Hess says that the company will remain focused on investment management, trading and compliance support for its client base as he advances initiatives for mobile computing, social media and cloud computing. “It’s more of the same in terms of what we’re going to do,” he adds. “What will change is how we’re doing it.”
In addition, although Advent has focused its offerings for the middle and back offices, Hess says he hopes to make data the Advent software generates more accessible to front office personnel, without requiring clientsto deploy another desktop screen.
Hess, who joined Advent in 1994, says he is proud of the product specialization that he has led during his tenure as president when Advent invested in independent platforms that cater to different investment management groups. “We didn’t try to take a single standardized approach and try to make it work for all our clients,” Hess says. “We placed a premium on understanding the differences among advisors, asset managers and hedge funds.”
—Alexa Mehraban
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