BTON Financial has hired Charles Phan as chief technology officer (CTO) and Caroline Holmes as head of business development to meet the demand for its outsourced dealing desk.
Phan and Holmes will support the firm’s growth ambitions, drive the adoption of its independent outsourced dealing desk within the asset management community and respond to increasing demand for its offering.
Prior to BTON Financial, Phan was CTO at Interdax, a crypto exchange, where he deployed an ultra-low latency matching engine supporting both institutional and retail clients.
He has held senior technology roles at hedge funds, with responsibility for full-stack development of distributed automated trading systems, and has traded instruments across several asset classes.
During his career, Phan has gained 15 years of experience in the funds asset management industry and financial markets overall.
Commenting on his appointment, Phan said: "I am excited to join BTON Financial as CTO. I look forward to working with the BTON management team and our clients to deliver on our technology roadmap and ensure we continue to help asset managers drive trading performance through innovation and automation.”
Meanwhile, Holmes brings 20 years of experience to BTON Financial. In her new role, she will act as a conduit between clients, technology and sales teams to enable swift and informative onboarding for asset managers.
Holmes will use her extensive knowledge of asset managers and their protocols to ensure the client experience is as efficient and valuable as possible.
Prior to BTON Financial, Holmes worked with investment managers such as Columbia Threadneedle, Principal Global Investors, BT Pension Scheme Management, Hermes and BMO GAM.
Holmes commented: “Throughout my career, I have supported a wide variety of teams in dealing with the impact of regulatory, political and industry change on market infrastructure and liquidity. Outsourcing trading activities is a growing trend in the industry and I am delighted to join BTON Financial’s efforts to support asset managers by helping them adapt to ever-changing market conditions and remain competitive.”
Dan Shepherd, CEO and co-founder, BTON Financial, said: “We are delighted to welcome Charles Phan and Caroline Holmes to the team. Their experience, expertise and industry knowledge will be invaluable in helping us grow the business and continue to innovate.”
He added: “We have seen increased demand for our outsourced dealing desk services as a result of recent events, their impact on the market and on operating models. The asset management community is evaluating workflow automation and innovative ways to execute their trading strategies, increasingly calling on us to support their efforts to automate, maintain a competitive advantage and deliver returns to their end clients.”
The appointments follow the introduction of BTON Financial’s Smart Broker Router, designed to support asset managers in taking advantage of the emerging liquidity and execution opportunities.
The Smart Broker Router improves trading performance automatically, by selecting the most appropriate broker with the most appropriate execution algorithm, while at the same time ensuring full regulatory compliance.
BTON Financial also recently partnered with genesis, bringing together genesis’ ability for agile software development and BTON Financial’s independent technology and data-driven approach to outsourced dealing in the form of their Smart Broker Router.
