SWIFT has followed up the news that former Citibanker Jim Donovan will replace Francis Remacle as head of its securities operations with a spate of new hirings at various levels in the organisation. SWIFT says it needed to bring in new talent “to gear up for 2010,” the completion date for a new strategy which will be unveiled by the end of next year.
Gottfried Leibbrandt joins SWIFT after 18 years at McKinsey, where he was a Principal in their financial services practice and co-founder of their European payments practice. In the new role of Director of Strategy and Development, reporting to CEO Lenny Schrank, Leibbrandt will “help drive SWIFT’s strategic evolution and provide greater cohesion between commercial activities and the market.”
Gary Bertone joins SWIFT after 22 years at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he was Vice President Wholesale Product Office for the past six years, responsible for managing the Fedwire Funds Service for the Federal Reserve System and for the business continuity of all Fedwire Services. As Head of Market Infrastructures in the Banking Industry Division, Bertone will be based in New York and is responsible for managing SWIFT’s relationship with the major payments market infrastructures. Of particular strategic importance in the coming months will be the implementation of TARGET2. Bertone takes over from Harry Newman, who took on new responsibilities as Director FIN and Messaging. Newman now reports to Johan Kestens, Executive for Marketing.
Geoffroy De Schrevel joins from Unisys Consulting (formerly KPMG Consulting) as SWIFT’s new Head of Payments Market, and will be responsible for driving the development of SWIFTSolutions in this space. Previously, De Schrevel held senior positions with Advalvas Group, Maestro International and Europay International, where he started up Europay offices in Prague, Warsaw, Moscow and Istanbul and developed domestic payment systems in several Eastern countries.
Both Bertone and De Schrevel report to Lzaro Campos, Executive, Banking Industry Division.
Kosta Peric, Director of Interfaces and Connectivity Products, reporting to Kestens, has hired Paolo Bernini, who has experience in business development and product management within the telecommunications sector with Telecom Italia, AT&T, Radianz and Tiscali. As head of direct connectivity products, he is responsible for product management of all products needed to connect directly to SWIFTNet: the SWIFTNet Link, the connectivity packs, the VPN box, the hardware security module, and the secure IP network itself.
Paul Shetler joins SWIFT from Microsoft, where he was most recently Managing Director for the financial services industry at Microsoft EMEA. Shetler has also worked for Netfish Technologies (later IONA), where he also focused on their financial services business, as well as at Oracle, where he was Senior Industry Director, responsible for their EAI and e-business strategy. Based in London, he will focus on the interface add-on business – the separately-charged options, agents and adapters of the SWIFTAlliance range of interface products – and will seek to broaden the business and technology offering of SWIFT in that area.
“To transform its commercial front end, SWIFT is putting more technical resources closer to its customers through a new Global Sales Services (GSS) organisation,” says Amanda Westwood, Director of Global Sales Services. The GSS teams work in tandem with the local Banking and Securities sales representatives with te ambition of ensuring faster and deeper support for SWIFTNet and the SWIFT2010 initiatives.
As Senior Manager Global Sales Services for our Asia-Pacific region based in Hong Kong, Christian Sarafidis joins SWIFT after ten years at Controlware, most recently as Executive Vice President of Controlware International, responsible for international subsidiaries, strategic development, and global alliances.
Nancy Pierce joins SWIFT after 23 years at JPMorgan Chase, most recently as Senior Vice President, JPMorgan Treasury Services. Pierce will be SWIFT’s Global Sales Services Manager for the Americas, based in New York.
Both have been asked to contribute to SWIFT’s “CIO reach programme,” which is managed by GSS, and whose role is to engage with chief information officers. “We want to work with our members, to identify proprietary systems throughout the organisation that can benefit from adopting SWIFTNet and our SWIFTSolutions,” explains Schrank. “These senior officers have the job scope and budget authority to rationalize their banks’ systems end to end. Our CIO reach programme should be a big benefit to them. These recent hires are a testimony to the talent SWIFT is now attracting and to our commitment to benefit our members for years to come.”