Wilson-Taylor Joins FastFin
Posted by Colin Lambert. Last updated: January 8, 2024
Simon Wilson-Taylor has joined the management team at fintech FastFin, the company that incubated FX Hedgepool, to lead projects for clients on both sell and buy side.
Wilson-Taylor was last co-founder of Loop FX, he left the firm last year, having previously established Molten Markets, which was in turn acquired by Icap – a firm he worked for as head of EBS Institutional for five years. He is probably best known for establishing and leading the Global Link business at State Street over a more-than 16-year period, following that he spent two years as global head of FICC e-commerce at UBS.
“Simon brings a rare combination of skills and experience from across the full spectrum of asset classes and industry functions, developed during his multi-decade career building businesses both within major institutions and at his own successful startups,” says FastFin founder Richard Leader. “Our institutional clients will benefit from his candid approach to honing ideas and readying them for inclusion in our Innovation Kickstarter and Product Booster rapid development programmes.”
Wilson-Taylor adds, “I love the process of developing ideas and giving them life. Frankly, it’s the part of any start-up process that I’m best at and have been enjoying so much in my own advisory and incubation business. FastFin’s well-defined and established development process turbo-charges that and I’m delighted to be joining this team.”
FastFin was founded in 2014 in New York by Richard Leader and Emin Tatosian, both co-founders of FX Hedgepool, the latter currently CTO at the platform. The firm says its core capabilities include interoperability, composable AI, workflow remodelling, and robotic process engineering.
“Having FastFin build a working prototype in a matter of weeks, and for a fixed cost, enables senior leaders to express their ideas and rapidly garner support, internally and externally, without impacting or derailing other essential projects,” says Leader. “Once a prototype is met with excitement by senior management and their clients, which it usually is, FastFin seamlessly switches gears into production-ready mode.
“This enables an idea to be brought to market in a timeframe measured in weeks and months, not years, as is customary,” he adds. “Speed is particularly important because groundbreaking innovation typically has a shelf life. If you don’t get there first, someone else will.”