Flanagan Joins Theta

Paul Flanagan has joined buy side trading technology as a service provider Theta, as strategic sales advisor – he is tasked with managing relationships with asset managers, hedge funds, fund managers and pension funds.

He joins from Lloyds Bank in London where he was managing director for institutional investor sales for over five years. Previously he has worked in fixed income sales management at Societe Generale, HSBC, Citi and Deutsche Bank.

Flanagan joins as Theta prepares to launch its trading system for the buy-side, Apollo, later in 2021. Apollo is a cloud native SaaS aggregator, designed from the ground up to address what the firms says are the gaps and challenges faced by firms as market structures and trading landscapes evolve.

The platform is being launched with fixed income capabilities, but the firm says FX trading will be added later this year and equities during 2022. Theta has already built trading and data connectors for MarketAxess, Tradeweb, MTS BondVision, UBS Bond Port, Neptune, BondCliQ, IHS Markit, ICE Data Services, and Refinitiv amongst others, it says, adding the platform integrates with clients’ existing P/OMS systems via FIX and REST APIs.

“As we move closer to launching Apollo we continue to raise awareness among buy-side trading firms and grow our sales pipeline,” says Abdullah Hiyatt, Theta founder & CEO. “Paul’s appointment accelerates this process, as he provides us with unrivalled fixed income knowledge, business development expertise and a wealth of senior industry relationships.”

Flanagan adds, “As the trading landscape evolves at speed, buy-side firms are increasingly demanding more flexible, modern and efficient electronic trading technology. Theta provides an ideal technology platform to automate electronic trading workflows together with actionable integrated pre-trade pricing data.”