He will lead a series of market-wide working groups in the coming months to validate and refine the technology and business approach.

These working groups will adopt an industry-led and collaborative approach to address some of the biggest structural challenges in the corporate bond market. By involving all sides of the market from the outside, LedgerEdge will ensure its platform is built by the industry, for the industry.

Tim Cook was formerly Head of EMEA and APAC Sales at LiquidityEdge, which was also founded by LedgerEdge founder and R3 CEO David E. Rutter. LiquidityEdge was sold to MarketAxess in 2019 for US$150 million. Cook also has extensive experience in fixed income from his tenures at EBS BrokerTec and Thomson Reuters.

Led by Cook, the working groups will investigate, test and refine product design, including the value proposition of using blockchain technology, artificial intelligence and secure enclave computing to improve market function.

Based on this close collaboration with the market, LedgerEdge will build a prototype platform that lets participants share data and orders with more nuance and intelligence, and execute trades with minimal data leakage. It will also create an entirely new market for data in which users benefit from the value their own trade data generates.

The working group sessions, which will run from late September to late November, will also address technology integration, with the aim of making onboarding as fast and easy as possible.

Tim Cook, Head of Business Development at LedgerEdge, comments: “Our goal is as ambitious as it is exciting; to deliver a fundamentally better ecosystem and experience for finding data, sharing data and executing trades in the corporate bond market. The only way to deliver on this promise is to listen to the diverse requirements of all market segments and have them both validate and challenge our working assumptions. I am delighted to be joining LedgerEdge and working closely with our fantastic partners.”

David Nicol, CEO of LedgerEdge, comments: “We are thrilled to welcome Tim to the team and ready to launch the next phase for LedgerEdge: an ecosystem approach to fixing the market’s most difficult challenges. Tim brings deep market knowledge and passion to LedgerEdge, and he will play a critical role in engaging the most forward-thinking market participants. I’m also excited to share our plans with the market through the upcoming working groups, which will ensure that we deliver a product with real value.”