Additional key hires in London to support growing customer base
London, 28 January, 2013 – Volante Technologies, a global leader in the provision of innovative financial data integration, today announced the opening of an office in Dubai to serve the Middle East and Africa (MEA) regions. Mick Fennell, General Manager, MEA has been appointed to run the Dubai operation, reporting to Fiona Hamilton, Vice President, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa).
Mick is a strategic hire, building Volante’s MEA presence with responsibility for all aspects of Volante’s business in the region. He joins Volante after more than twenty years at Misys where he was latterly Head of Transaction Banking MEA with responsibility for front-to-back processing of payments, trade finance and cash management, based in Dubai. Prior to this role, Mick held numerous positions within the Misys organisation largely in the payments and financial messaging fields covering functions from product management, to business development, to sales, implementation, and product marketing.
Commenting on his appointment, Mick Fennell, General Manager, Volante MEA said, “I am very excited about the opportunities for Volante in the Middle East and Africa region. Volante is committed to helping clients navigate and manage the diverse, complex and growing mass of message formats, standards and protocols throughout the lifecycle of any financial transaction. We handle the management of message complexity, so firms can improve their straight-through-processing (STP) rates and take full advantage of their commercial opportunities.”
He continues by saying ‘this is a very important time for financial institutions and corporates in the Middle East and Africa. At the same time that businesses are expanding and experiencing double digit growth, processes and modes of operation are becoming more sophisticated, and new regulations and standards for communicating data are impacting existing infrastructures. I look forward to helping customers and partners in the region take advantage of Volante’s innovative technology and to helping the company align product development to any specific regional requirements.”
Chris Stares also joins Volante in London, as Principal Technical Consultant. Reporting to Fiona Hamilton, Chris brings more than sixteen years of financial message data integration experience to Volante’s EMEA customer base. Chris previously worked as a Senior Integration Consultant for Bank of New Zealand, Mercator and Braid Systems. Chris’ focus will be to develop Volante’s technical capabilities within the region and to work with clients’ architecture and development teams to define best practice integration solutions and assist with implementation and the transference of skills and knowledge.
These new appointments reinforce Volante’s commitment to the EMEA region as a whole, evidenced by the hiring of Allan Spalding in May 2012 as Volante’s Partner Management Director. Allan joined Volante to provide a specific focus on the company’s partner community ensuring effective communication channels across both technical and sales functions. In addition, Allan is now guiding the company’s product developments in treasury and cash management having spent twelve years in the SWIFT Treasury Markets Division and Banking Partner Relations and eighteen years in all aspects of treasury operations at Royal Bank of Canada.
These three additions to the Volante EMEA team bring seventy years of relevant experience into the Volante organisation enabling the company to better service the varied integration requirements of the financial services community.
Vijay Oddiraju, Chief Executive Officer, Volante, added, “We are delighted to announce these three important and highly-regarded hires. Core to the continued growth of Volante is a strong management, relationship and market engagement team which will ensure we can expand and deliver the services required by our customers right the way across the trade lifecycle – from initiation to settlement. In the quest for greater efficiency, cost reduction and reduced operational risk we are witnessing a growing appetite for the automation of message management in corporate payments, treasury, trade services, remittances and clearing. We welcome conversations with regional, country and domestic partners to help meet this growing demand.”