State Street built out its dedicated digital division in March, adding three executives to its leadership team.

Katie Richards, based in Zurich, joined as global head of operations. She will be responsible for driving the execution of State Street Digital’s strategy and developing sustainable and scalable operational solutions. She previously served as chief executive officer of Cyber Capital, a crypto investment management company, and before that, held senior positions at Falcon Private Bank, UBS and Credit Suisse.

Marcus Grubb, based in London, joined as global head of product. He will be responsible for developing and driving end-to-end product strategy for State Street Digital. Grubb was most recently chief executive officer of BlockEx, which white-labels asset digitization and trading technology. Previously, he served as director of market development and senior advisor for the World Platinum Investment Council; managing director of investment, global spokesperson and strategist for the World Gold Council; and chief executive officer of Swapstream, a derivatives exchange system.

Both hires will report to Nadine Chakar, executive vice president and head of State Street Digital.

Additionally, State Street announced that Derren Selvarajah has joined as product PMO lead for the product strategy team. Previously, he worked with Standard Chartered Bank as global head of securities service tech, innovation, digital transformation and delivery. Selvarajah will report to Grubb.

State Street Digital, launched in 2021, handles the $303 billion State Street Bank’s strategy in digital assets and crypto space.

DTCC appoints two financial tech innovation leaders to Board of Directors

William Capuzzi of Apex Fintech Solutions and Kelley Conway of Northern Trust have joined the board of directors at The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), a post-trade infrastructure for the global financial services industry, as of March 30.

Prior to Apex, Capuzzi held senior leadership positions at Convergex, Pershing and DLJ. Capuzzi sets the vision and strategy to help the company identify new areas of growth and opportunity. He has spent his entire career in the trading, clearing, and custody business.

Conway served as executive vice president, head of corporate & digital strategy at Northern Trust, where she led the company’s strategic planning process and played a key role in the creation of an enterprise digital strategy and roadmap to enhance client experience, produce quicker business outcomes and improve security, stability and scalability. She brings more than 20 years of consulting experience in technology strategy to DTCC’s board, with past roles at Accenture and PwC.

The DTCC board is currently comprised of 22 directors, 14 of which are participant directors who represent clearing agency members, including international broker/dealers, custodian and clearing banks and investment institutions.

Fintech Envestnet names new head of data and analytics

Farouk Ferchichi is the new global head of data and analytics at the wealth management and investment fintech Envestnet.

“Envestnet uses data and technology to support millions of decisions people make about money every single day,” Bill Crager, CEO of Envestnet, said in a release. “Farouk and his team will drive the execution of our global data strategy and further strengthen our leadership in the data and analytics industry.”

Envestnet has entered into data-sharing agreements with Charles Schwab, JPMorgan Chase and Citibank.

Ferchichi joined Envestnet in March 2021 as chief data and analytics officer. Prior to joining the company, he held global chief data analytics roles at USAA and Toyota; global consulting partner roles with Accenture and Gartner; and functional roles in risk management, manufacturing and non-profit operations.

RBC Australia names new head of technology

Layton Bonnici is the new head of technology at the Royal Bank of Canada Australia following the resignation in March of Curtis Smith, who was head of industrials and technology investment banking.

Rob Mete becomes head of industrials, in addition to his existing responsibilities as head of financial sponsors and health care, according to a March 22 Bloomberg Mercury report on Smith’s resignation.

Cryptocurrency platform Celsius adds chief technology officer

Guillermo Bodnar joined lending and borrowing cryptocurrency platform Celsius as chief technology officer in March.

Bodnar will be based in the San Francisco Bay Area and report to CEO Alex Mashinsky. Bodnar previously served as chief solutions officer at Globant, where he led the company’s digital solutions strategy, built a global tech delivery footprint and implemented the required IT functions, systems and processes needed for the company’s initial public offering (IPO).

Prior to his work at Globant, Bodnar was chief information officer of Arbinet, where he built a telecommunications exchange and trading platform. He also built the compliance platform required for the company’s IPO.

Tech banker leaves Citigroup

Technology banker Herb Yeh is leaving Citigroup to join the investment bank Evercore, Bloomberg Mercury reported in March. Yeh was co-head of Citigroup’s global technology investment banking, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Bank of America hires new vice chair of corporate, investment banking

Madhu Kannan has returned to Bank of America as executive vice chair of global corporate and investment banking, according to published reports.

Kannan will partner with Sam Powers, head of global technology, media and telecom investment banking, and Ric Spencer and Johnny Williams, co-heads of global technology investment banking, according to the news report.

Kannan worked for Bank of America-Merrill Lynch in 2008 as managing director of corporate strategy and business development, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data.