Barclays Investment Bank operations chief joins Baton Systems in same role

New executive is the first chief operating officer in Baton Systems’ history, bringing industry experience from Barclays, Deutsche Bank, and Bankers Trust.

By Annabel Smith

The former chief operating officer of Barclays Investment Bank has joined post-trade and blockchain technology provider, Baton Systems, in the same role.

David Ornstein has been appointed as Baton’s first chief operating officer, joining from Barclays Investment Bank where he had previously spent 13 years, notably guiding the institution through the transformation of its business processes.

Prior to joining Barclays, Ornstein also spent two and a half years at Deutsche Bank as its chief operating officer for its US credit trading business and has also operated as a fixed income trader at both Bankers Trust and Bear Stearns.

As Baton’s first ever chief operating officer, he will be responsible for scaling the company as market demand for distributed ledger technology (DLT) continues to rise.

Baton claims that its DLT solutions have facilitated the movement of over $3.5 trillion settlements to date.

“With vast experience delivering operational solutions for global businesses, he is a practitioner at the top of his game,” said Arjun Jayaram, founder and chief executive of Baton Systems.

“David joins a team of world-class industry leaders and his extensive operational experience, in both the banking industry and helping fast growth companies achieve scale, will prove instrumental as we execute our 2022 strategy.”

Ornstein’s appointment follows the addition of several industry veterans to Baton’s arsenal in the last year: including former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chairman, Christopher Giancarlo, and futures and clearing industry veteran, Jerome Kemp, who both joined as advisors last year.

Several DLT-focused developments have taken place in the market recently, highlighting rising demand for the technology.

In December last year, State Street, Vanguard and Symbiont completed the first live trade for an FX forward contract using DLT and the first interbank riskless settlement outside of CLS using Baton’s Core-FX solution took place.

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