BTON Financial has appointed fixed income and electronic trading expert, Andrew Bernard, as Non-Executive Director. Bernard joins BTON’s advisory board from Tradeweb, where he held a variety of senior positions over the past 17 years, including MD, Head of of Asia and as an MD in the London office. Prior to Tradeweb he served as Head of European Government Bond Sales and as Principal of the Global Leveraged Group for Bank of America, and Director of UK sales at Société Générale. Bernard will play a key role in shaping the direction of the company and delivering BTON Financial’s plans to bring its technology and data-driven dealing desk to the wider asset management community.
In tandem, Caroline Holmes, a regulatory expert and change management specialist, has been promoted to Chief Operating Officer, having served as Head of Business Development since April, 2020. Holmes will be responsible for driving operational efficiency for BTON Financial and will help clients to take advantage of new liquidity and execution opportunities, while also ensuring their best-execution regulatory compliance.
The appointments come at a pivotal time for the asset management industry. Firms have been forced to adapt to new working practices while still under pressure to automate existing workflows and processes and deliver returns to clients. By using BTON Financial’s outsourced dealing desk, asset managers are able to maintain a significant edge over their peers and implement trading strategies effectively with automated workflow processes and improved trading performance.
Bernard, says: “I am looking forward to working with BTON Financial’s management team. The timing couldn’t be better – the asset management industry is evolving rapidly as a result of the changes within the investment ecosystem, and with the impact of recent events. Small to mid-tier asset managers especially will benefit from deploying new and effective technology, and BTON Financial makes it straightforward for asset managers to move ahead. BTON Financial allows users to automate workflows, and connect to all liquidity venues through its proprietary Smart Broker Router, which is driven by objective, accurate machine learning, data and analysis. This is the smart way to manage, understand, and access real liquidity, and to have the best chance to thrive in the new environment.”
Dan Shepherd, CEO & co-Founder, says: “We are delighted to be joined by Andrew in an advisory capacity and Caroline in her new role as Chief Operating Officer. They bring with them the expertise and industry knowledge to help us grow our business. Andrew’s pedigree as an industry pioneer, leading electronic trading capabilities is complemented by Caroline’s regulatory expertise and strong customer understanding, both will be invaluable as we scale to meet the pace of industry demand. We have made a number of strategic hires over the past months as the asset management industry is waking up to the potential that our outsourced dealing desk offers to help them deliver immediate trading improvements and reap returns.”
BTON Financial is well positioned to help asset managers digitise, its outsourced dealing desk is open source and delivered as SaaS, making it easy to integrate into existing technology stacks and workflows.
