Arnold de Christen will be taking over the management of the newly established branch and customer care for clients in French-speaking Europe. At the same time Etops is strengthening its sales team with Roberto Masciadri as Head Client Solutions. In addition, the company founded in 2010, announced the creation of an Advisory Board.

Two and a half years after its foundation Etops now boasts 23 employees at its locations in Pfäffikon SZ and Bratislava/Slovakia. «The expansion in personnel, the two additions at management level, our geographical expansion and the creation of our Advisory Board reflect the growing need of our clients for comprehensive outsourcing and consultancy solutions in the middle office area for multi-managers, independent asset managers as well as for managers of single funds» says Michael Appenzeller, Etops' CEO, of the latest expansion scheme.

New contact person for French-speaking clients

In future, Etops will service its clients in French-speaking Europe from its Geneva branch, which will be headed by Arnold de Christen, who was partner and COO of Alyat Asset Management in Geneva before moving to Etops. Previously Arnold de Christen was responsible for fund operations, IT and the data management team at Optimal Investment Services SA in Geneva and held major operational functions at EIM SA in Nyon. He earned a BA in International Business with a minor in Asian studies in New York.

Sales specialist with proven IT skills

In Roberto Masciadri the Etops sales team has won an experienced specialist in fund-of-fund software, who is also an expert in complex reporting and data management solutions in the area of alternative investments. Previously, he was the Head of Technology for a large Swiss fund of funds and was responsible for group-wide project management, requirements engineering, data management and migration as well as process and software development. Roberto Masciadri has a degree in application development with a specialization in unified modeling language, requirements engineering and business analysis.

Advisory Board as sparring partner for strategic development

In view of the further strategic expansion in the growing middle office outsourcing and consultancy solutions area, Etops has established a three-man Advisory Board. The board members are Markus Gamper, Thomas Huber and Grégoire Tézé. Markus Gamper, as former Director Alternative Funds and Head Projects at RMF and Horizon21, has extensive experience of the alternative investments world from many different perspectives. Today, as an independent entrepreneur he supports numerous companies in various sectors with corporate development advice and project management capacities. Thomas Huber was for many years a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) where he was responsible for their Asset Management Practice. As an audit controller he worked with first-class asset managers for both traditional and alternative investments and dealt intensively with the issues of governance, internal control systems and accounting. Today he also makes his expertise available to companies from many different sectors as an independent entrepreneur. Grégoire Tézé is the Managing Director of RAM Capital (Asia) Pte. Ltd. in Singapore and brings in his experience in building up international markets to Etops amongst other skills. «With Messrs. Gamper, Huber and Tézé we have gained three personalities from the financial sector for our Advisory Board who stand out from the crowd thanks to their seniority and expertise. We are looking forward to discussing strategic questions with them» states Michael Appenzeller, CEO of Etops.