Knight tapped to lead Baton’s Emea expansion

Alex Knight, a former managing director at Citi, has joined distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based post-trade solutions provider Baton Systems as its head for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (Emea).

Knight is based in London, where Baton is currently opening an office as part of a global expansion. The California-based firm currently has offices in New York and India, with another planned for Singapore in 2021.

He is tasked with helping to build upon the adoption of Baton’s payment infrastructure in Europe by banks and clearing houses.

“Excessive funding costs, operational inefficiencies and risk all create a significant drag on financial markets participants. Technology can be used to mitigate these pressures,” Knight said in a press statement announcing his appointment. “Baton has evolved as one of the industry’s most innovative financial technology firms, solving inefficiencies in legacy payments systems in a practical way, and I look forward to driving the expansion of its business in Europe.”

He spent the past 18 years at Citi, where he also served as global head of sales and client coverage for the bank’s foreign exchange prime brokerage business between 2015 and 2019. Prior to that, he was a sales director at SS&C Technologies, which sells software to the financial services industry, from 1999 to 2000.

“Alex’s wealth of knowledge, and deep connections with broader banking and financial institutions in Europe will be instrumental in helping Baton to automate the movement of assets across the financial system,” said Andres Choussy, president and chief operating officer at Baton.

“Baton is at a crucial stage of its growth, and Alex’s experience across FX and derivatives markets will enable us to more quickly build on the company’s platform that has already established a strong reputation in the European market,” he adds.

Baton’s platform uses the DLT to help clients move assets in near real-time. The company has already onboarded three of the top 10 global banks. Its platform settles close to $13 billion a day and is active in all major currencies.