OpenFin, the operating system powering digital transformation across financial desktops globally, today announced that Stephen Wood has joined the firm as Global Head of Enterprise Deployment.
Wood joins from Deutsche Bank, where he served as Head of Market Data, Risk and Compliance, from 2012 – 2015, and Global Head of Market Data Services, from 2015 – 2018, with responsibilities including managing the deployment of vendor products. Wood brings his unique insights to OpenFin, where he will be responsible for driving the firm’s enterprise deployment strategy.
He will be working closely with the growing number of banks, asset managers and hedge funds now running their financial desktop applications on OpenFin. In addition, he will continue developing relationships with the rapidly expanding community of FinTech and market data vendors keen to build on OpenFin, to further collaboration among these firms and accelerate their time-to-market, by enabling their applications to be more easily deployed to end users.
Wood brings over 20 years of financial services industry experience to the newly created position, along with a unique insight into the full trade lifecycle having worked in exchanges, data vendors, the back/middle office, trading technology and extensively with the front office. He joins at an exciting time for the business and the industry as a whole, as many firms are looking to OpenFin to help them transform their slow, inefficient and extremely complex software deployment processes.
Commenting on his recent appointment, Stephen Wood said: “I firmly believe the financial services industry is changing; with revenues shrinking, cost is becoming a fundamental driver to success. Firms can no longer afford the multiple rounds of software packaging, security reviews and testing required every time a new or updated version of an application is released. These processes stifle innovation and delay access to new features and functionality that can drive greater productivity and profitability.”
A recent report by Greenwich Associates estimated, “antiquated processes cost financial services firms roughly $1.5 billion annually on an aggregate basis.”
Wood added: “In order to meet client demands and deliver a cutting edge service, firms need to be able to transform their legacy technology platforms, simplify their environment and employ agile development methods so they can continue to provide their users with best of breed applications. I’m excited to be joining OpenFin, as we are in a primary position to be the catalyst for future success in the capital markets.”
Many financial firms are now turning to OpenFin to address the challenges presented by outdated deployment practices. Licensed to more than 145,000 financial desktops globally, OpenFin is now being used to enable the deployment of hundreds of applications to over 500 major banks and buy-side firms. Using OpenFin, firms can build unique and secure desktops that integrate legacy technology with the very latest applications and allow new and updated applications to be quickly and efficiently deployed onto permissioned desktops.
Adam Toms, CEO of OpenFin Europe, said: “I am delighted to welcome Stephen to our expanding team in Europe. Stephen brings a deep understanding of industry developments in the market data sector and evolving trends that are likely to impact future technology requirements. As Global Head of Enterprise Deployment, he will play an instrumental role in our growth strategy, to enable major financial services vendors, FinTechs, banks, buy-side firms and hedge funds to build innovative solutions on OpenFin, and get those applications quickly and securely deployed to end users.”