Gillespie Joins AWR Capital as GMO Takes Stake

Former B2C2 CEO Phil Gillespie has joined algorithmic trading firm AWR Capital as managing partner. The firm has also announced a deal with Japanese firm GMO Financial Holdings for the latter to take a 10% stake in the company, which will become a dedicated market maker for GMO’s FX and digital assets exchange GMO Coin.

The partnership with GMO will allow AWR to build out its services and solutions to span multiple asset classes and strategies, according to Tomitaka Ishimura, COO at GMO Financial.

Gillespie joined the firm in March and is tasked with driving AWR’s business development strategy and scaling its operations. He spent five years with B2C2, having joined from Goldman Sachs, where he led the FX G10 and commodities trading for EMEA, as part of the systematic market-making team. Prior to that he held senior FX algo trading roles in the Asia region for both JP Morgan and Barclays.

“I am excited to join AWR Capital at a time of significant opportunity for a trusted team to provide safe, efficient multi-asset exposure coupled with seamless execution,” Gillespie says. “I look forward to working with this first-class team to expand AWR’s operations across products and geographies so that investors and market participants alike will be able to capitalise on volatility in both digital and traditional financial markets.”

Dave Askey, managing partner and founder of AWR Capital, adds, “Phil’s systematic trading expertise and extensive industry network will be of immense value to our firm as we build out a multi-asset financial services offering. We launched AWR in 2021 to take advantage of the exceptional opportunities available in cryptocurrency markets – these opportunities are only set to grow and we look forward to expanding our services and solutions significantly in the coming months.”