AlphaPoint today, January 21 2016, announced that industry veteran Scott Scalf has joined its executive team. Scalf, who was the former Director of Trade Lifecycle Systems at Deutsche Bank Global Technology, joins the company as Executive Vice President of Development Operations.
“The financial sector is undergoing a profound technological shift as firms and institutions embrace the blockchain and related technologies. More than ever, it’s important that veteran leadership helps drive innovation in the space, “With more than 25 years of engineering and management experience, Scott has a deep understanding not only of existing market infrastructure, but of our firm’s vision of what will come next, and he will be key to AlphaPoint’s continued growth.” said Joe Ventura, Founder of AlphaPoint.
Mr. Scalf boasts a wealth of experience in engineering and managing both front and back-office systems for both buy-side and sell-side firms: OMS/EMS, algorithmic execution, real-time position and risk, dynamic trading surveillance, post-trade processing, clearing & settlement, and regulatory reporting. Scott’s previous roles include Head of Enterprise Technology and Head of Institutional Brokerage Technology at Susquehanna International Group, Director of Trade Lifecycle Systems at Deutsche Bank, and CTO and founder of S3 Consulting.
Scott’s teams have successfully designed and delivered systems for multiple Wall Street institutions, including Merrill Lynch, Charles Schwab, Deutsche Bank, SIG, and others. Throughout his career, Scott has focused on high-performance, high-throughput distributed systems; he holds two patents for proprietary asymmetric middleware optimized for massively concurrent web applications.
“World-class FinTech requires both a deep understanding of the domain and outstanding engineering capabilities - and AlphaPoint has both,” said Scott Scalf.
Why Alphapoint?
He continued by saying that he is thrilled to be involved at this innovative stage to help the AlphaPoint team build the trusted infrastructure needed to realize the potential blockchain technology, digital assets, and distributed ledgers hold for capital markets and beyond.”
Asked why he decided to join Alphapoint and no one else, Scott says:
“My short answer is: the team. I've worked at firms of varying sizes, building a wide variety of software for the capital markets and financial services industries. Over the past 25 years, I have found my greatest professional success and personal satisfaction have come when collaborating with passionate, talented colleagues who share a clear vision for the future and who are driven to make it come true. I see that kind of team at AlphaPoint, and I am excited to be a part of it.”
It will be all about the blockchain soon
Mr. Scalf explained that blockchains and distributed ledgers (public, private, and hybrid) will be critical, ubiquitous technological elements for fintech solutions which cross institutional and/or trust boundaries, which is a huge set of interesting problem domains. Borrowing a quote from a colleague of his, he said:
“In a few short years the question will not be 'What is your blockchain strategy?' Rather, it will be: 'What is your strategy in a blockchain world?”
He concluded with the explanation that the financial services industry is subject to a particularly comprehensive regulatory environment, with constraints often born of the paper-and-pencil world rather than the digital realities of today, and that these challenges shall be overcome by persistent, relentless, incremental progress by passionate, visionary teams creating capabilities, demonstrating value, and educating the market and regulators.