International Financial Data Services (IFDS), the joint venture between State Street Corporation and DST Systems, Inc and a leading global provider of investor and policyholder servicing solutions, has made a number of appointments within the business as part of a strategy to enable IFDS to continue to grow and achieve its long-term potential.
Simon Hudson-Lund, formerly CEO of IFDS and Head of European Transfer Agency Operations will take over as CEO of DSTi Holdings with responsibility for DST Global Solutions, DST Output UK and DST Bluedoor. Simon will also act as the DST shareholder representative and Executive Chairman to the IFDS Group of companies, following Steve Hooley's recent move to the position of CEO at parent company DST.
Following this appointment Paul Roberts, previously Managing Director, Business Development, will become CEO of the Funds business at IFDS responsible for IFDS' core transfer agency businesses in the UK, Ireland and Luxembourg. The focus will continue to be on delivering market leading services to our existing clients and on further development of our support for global asset managers as they develop their distribution capabilities.
Matthew Brown, formally Chief Administration Officer at IFDS has assumed the role of CEO for the newly formed Platforms business. Matthew and his team are developing the IFDS proposition focused on reducing costs for platforms. The proposition will concentrate on automation via online and self-servicing, with STP and exception based processing, and using the latest technology combined with proven and highly compliant administration. IFDS are the first providers to offer scale and long term administration solutions to the platform market, leveraging expertise from our established fund business.
In September 2012, IFDS appointed Steve Parkinson as CEO of their Retirement & Insurance Solutions business, including IFDS Percana based in Ireland. Steve, formerly Managing Director of Capita Life and Pension Services, has the responsibility of establishing an independent business unit focused on the European retirement and insurance market, in particular open and closed book, and group pensions. The new business area will offer a new generation of outsourced services to the retirement and insurance markets, concentrating ting on proven operational excellence and technology delivery.
"This is an extremely exciting time for IFDS as we diversify the business into supporting wealth management platforms and insurance companies, in addition to our traditional market of asset managers. I am delighted that Paul and Matthew have now joined Steve in heading up our core business units, having worked alongside both of them for a number of years. I have no doubt that they will all continue to strengthen and grow their businesses. Since IFDS began in Europe in 1995, it has gone from strength to strength and I am confident that we can continue to both replicate and improve the success of the business to date." said Simon Hudson-Lund, Executive Chairman at IFDS.
The IFDS group of companies, along with State Street, provides leading investor and policy holder servicing solutions to the collective investment, retirement and insurance markets in Asia Pacific, Europe and North America.