After months of silence, Equilend has finally announced a COO and CTO for the securities lending consortium. Brent Bessire will be COO and be responsible for formalizing the infrastructure of the company, and will work with platform participants to provide them with seamless integration and on-going support. Mr. Bessire joins EquiLend from IntlTrader.com where as COO and Managing Director, he assisted in the creation and managed the development of the first online trading system to allow clients to invest in U.S. and foreign securities in U.S. Dollars. Prior to IntlTrader.com, he was Executive Vice President of Discover Brokerage (formally Lombard Brokerage). Mr. Bessire has over ten years experience in the financial services industry and has extensive international equity experience.
In his role as CTO, Mr. Glicher will immediately focus on developing EquiLend’s platform and working with key technology vendors. Formerly a Managing Director in the PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP Financial Services Technology practice, Mr. Glicher managed and coordinated teams of analysts, developers, technical support and quality assurance personnel and oversaw the architecture, design and implementation of financial hardware/software systems utilizing web-based, Client/Server and multi-tier architectures for a broad range of global financial services firms, including several major exchanges and utilities. Mr. Glicher has over 17 years experience in financial services.
The addition of Brent Bessire and Ben Glicher to EquiLend’s management team is a significant step towards the implementation of EquiLend’s global platform and realizing EquiLend’s vision for the securities lending industry, ” said Ian Drachman, EquiLend’s chief executive officer. “Their knowledge and breadth of experience in financial services will enable EquiLend to deliver a streamlined business process and increase efficiencies for securities lending industry participants.” EquiLend Implements Testing Phase EquiLend has completed the development of its global platform which is designed to service the needs of the global equity securities lending and financing industry. EquiLend’s platform is currently undergoing testing with EquiLend’s ten founding firms and remains on track to go live with Phase I in the first half of 2002, following receipt of applicable regulatory approvals. Phase I Functionality of the platform will include: availability, auto-borrow, one-to-one negotiations and comparisons in contract, billing and mark-to-market.