FastFin, the New York-based capital markets innovation lab and incubator, today announced that fintech pioneer and serial entrepreneur, Simon Wilson-Taylor, has joined its management team.
Wilson-Taylor will leverage his deep institutional fintech expertise to lead groundbreaking sell-side and buy-side innovation projects at FastFin clients.
Wilson-Taylor is a well-known financial markets entrepreneur, having co-founded pioneering FX venues LoopFX and Molten Markets, the latter being acquired in 2015 by ICAP (now CME Group). Previously, Wilson-Taylor held senior roles at State Street, where he launched and later headed the GlobalLink businesses, including FX Connect. He also contributed to the success of State Street’s currency management business, which became the world’s largest. Post-State Street, he served as UBS’s Global Head of FICC eCommerce and founded capital markets technology incubator and advisory firm, FICCit.
“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,” remarks 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 programs.”
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.”
Founded in 2014 in New York City by British fintech entrepreneurs Richard Leader and Emin Tatosian, FastFin delivers ultrafast innovation in the capital markets by combining deep domain expertise with cutting-edge technology, design thinking, and agile delivery. Its core capabilities include interoperability, composable AI, workflow remodeling, and robotic process engineering.
FastFin’s services have proven especially popular with business leaders in banks, who frequently encounter resource challenges when attempting to realize even relatively niche innovation projects. “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,” he adds. “This enables an idea to be brought to market in a timeframe measured in weeks and months, not years, as is customary. Speed is particularly important because groundbreaking innovation typically has a shelf life. If you don’t get there first, someone else will.”