Team
Rob Smith
CEO
Rob is an experienced, versatile, global professional occupying a unique niche in the Financial Technology space. He has a demonstrated track record of creating and managing diverse teams of varying sizes. He is currently the CEO and founder of Applied Financial Technology Ltd. The company, based in London, is a proprietary trading firm, aiming to redefine the concept of risk and risk management in financial markets through the innovative use of technology. Prior to his current role, he led GETCO LLC’s Asia-Pacific business, entering into all major markets in the region. These include Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Australia, India, and Malaysia. He represented the firm to Regulators, Exchanges, Clearing firms, and other stakeholders. He served as Chairman of the Board for GETCO Asia (Singapore), GETCO Hong Kong, and GETCO Australia. Before his time in Singapore, Rob was the CTO for GETCO LLC. There he led the development of a world-class, multi-currency, multi-asset class, globally distributed trading platform. He participated in all day-to-day and strategic management of the company as part of the four person executive committee. Rob holds a Master of Science in Finance from Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Systems Engineering from University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts.
Richard Crass
COO/CFO
Richard has over 25 years of experience as a senior finance professional primarily within US Investment Banks including JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers. He has supported secondary trading customer and proprietary trading businesses with extensive experience in Commodities, Fixed Income and Equities covering vanilla products to exotic derivative products. He has performed several CFO, FD and management roles and has a broad experience in Financial Strategy, Financial Control and Reporting, Traded Financial Products, Risk Management, Treasury and Liquidity. He has managed a variety of teams from small technical teams to large operational teams.
Selim Aydin
Finance
Selim joined Applied Financial Technology in 2016 and works in the Finance Department. His work experience includes private banking in Switzerland. He speaks four languages and is a qualified financial and mortgage adviser.
Phil Coleman
CTO
Phil has over 25 years of experience as a technology leader for major financial institutions across the globe. With various CTO / CIO roles across Asia, America and Europe overseeing teams of up to 400 people globally and operating budgets in excess of $65M. He has been responsible for building trading platforms, acquiring, and integrating businesses and vendor platforms. He has extensive experience operating at C level whilst remaining a hands-on technologist keeping in touch with new innovations in tools and ideas.
Mark Bishop
Technical Lead
Mark is a highly competent polyglot software developer with over 25 years of experience developing a wide range of applications and tools. Having worked as a consultant for several major financial institutions, including Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, BNP Paribas and Schroder Investment Management, he has a proven track record of building real-time financial trading applications. As a technical lead he has over 15 years of experience delivering quality trading software solutions for OTC and listed products.
Ye (Chloe) Tian
Quantitative Developer
Chloe joined Applied Financial Technology in 2018 as a quantitative developer. She currently focuses on the development of the post-trade and risk related AFT Activity platform, and Profit and Loss (PnL) related analysis. Before joining Applied Financial Technology, she worked as an intern in the Investment team of Albany Investment Limited and the Risk Consulting team of Maven Global LLP in London. Chloe earned a MSc in Risk Management and Financial Engineering from Imperial College London and a BSc Applied Mathematics from University of Liverpool.
Alexander Currin
Operations Associate
Alex joined Applied Financial Technology in 2019 to assist with the management and running of the futures and option strategies, as well as providing suggestions for improvement. He obtained degrees in MSc Financial Mathematics and BSc (Hons) Mathematics with Economics from the University of Exeter.
Alexander Moore
Operations Associate
Alex joined Applied Financial Technology in 2021 to assist with the monitoring of the algorithms, as well as providing suggestions for improvement and implementing them. He obtained an MChem in chemistry from the University of Durham and previously completed an internship at Paul Murray Investments.