Etops, a provider of middle office outsourcing and consultancy solutions, is expanding its business activities to Geneva.

Arnold de Christen will be taking over the management of the newly established branch and customer care for clients in French-speaking Europe.

At the same time Etops is strengthening its sales team with Roberto Masciadri as head client solutions. In addition, the company has created an advisory board.

Two and a half years after its foundation Etops now has 23 employees at its locations in Pfäffikon SZ and Bratislava/Slovakia.

“The expansion in personnel, the two additions at management level, our geographical expansion and the creation of our advisory board reflect the growing need of our clients for comprehensive outsourcing and consultancy solutions in the middle office area for multi-managers, independent asset managers as well as for managers of single funds,” says Michael Appenzeller (pictured), Etops’ chief executive.

In future, Etops will service its clients in French-speaking Europe from its Geneva branch, which will be headed by de Christen, who was partner and chief operating officer of Alyat Asset Management in Geneva before moving to Etops. Previously de Christen was responsible for fund operations, IT and the data management team at Optimal Investment Services in Geneva and held major operational functions at EIM in Nyon.

Masciadri was the head of technology for a large Swiss fund of funds and was responsible for group-wide project management, requirements engineering, data management and migration as well as process and software development.

In view of the further strategic expansion in the growing middle office outsourcing and consultancy solutions area, Etops has established a three-man advisory board. The board members are Markus Gamper, Thomas Huber and Grégoire Tézé.

Gamper, as former director alternative funds and head projects at RMF and Horizon21, has extensive experience of the alternative investments world from many different perspectives. Today, as an independent entrepreneur he supports numerous companies in various sectors with corporate development advice and project management capacities.

Huber was for many years a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers where he was responsible for the asset management practice. Today he also makes his expertise available to companies from many different sectors as an independent entrepreneur.

Tézé is the managing director of RAM Capital (Asia) in Singapore.