About
I currently work at Deutsche Börse Group within Clearstream, where I spend most of my time thinking about how financial market infrastructure should evolve, and occasionally helping to make it actually happen.
Before that, I did a PhD in mathematics, which seemed like a good idea at the time. It taught me how to think rigorously about complex systems, and how to be comfortable being wrong for long periods before eventually being slightly less wrong.
I started my career as a front-office quantitative analyst, then moved into fintech where I co-founded a business focused on digital capital markets. That phase involved building, breaking, and rebuilding things in an industry that is very good at reminding you that it existed long before you arrived.
Alongside my day job, I build a small number of independent ventures across advisory, technology and AI-enabled workflows. These are separate from my role at Deutsche Börse Group and mostly involve trying to apply what I have learned in more practical, and occasionally more chaotic, settings.
I am interested in public blockchain, artificial intelligence, and the broader question of how technology changes systems that people rely on but rarely think about. Much of my work sits somewhere between theory and implementation, usually in the gap where things are harder than expected, and outputs are scarce.
I also write from time to time, partly to clarify my own thinking, and partly in the hope that it might be useful to others navigating similar problems.
Professional Work
My role sits across product strategy, design and development of digital capabilities in regulated issuance and post-trade environments. In practice, this means working at the intersection of business, technology and regulation, where most things are more complex than they first appear.
A large part of the work involves translating between different perspectives: what markets need, what systems can realistically deliver, and what regulation will allow. This tends to involve a combination of designing new approaches, adapting existing ones, and accepting that some things cannot be changed as quickly as one might like.
There is also a cultural dimension to this work. Modern delivery approaches, including agile methods, tend to work well in theory, but rely heavily on how teams actually operate in practice. Much of the challenge is less about adopting a framework, and more about creating the conditions in which it can be used effectively without becoming a new form of process for its own sake.
The broader context is the ongoing transformation of financial market infrastructure, where new technologies are introduced into systems that prioritise stability, trust and continuity above all else. Progress, as a result, is usually incremental, and occasionally surprising.
This section reflects my institutional role only. My independent ventures and advisory activities are separate and are described below.
Ventures
Alongside my institutional role, I build and support a small number of independent ventures. These sit across advisory, technology, professional services and writing, and reflect a general preference for working on problems that are easier to describe than to solve.
Each has a distinct role, although in practice there is some overlap, particularly when moving from strategy into execution.
Montreve Advisory
Montreve provides strategic advisory and consulting for complex digital initiatives.
The focus is on a small number of engagements where clarity, judgement and execution discipline matter most. This typically involves working closely with senior stakeholders to shape direction, challenge assumptions and translate intent into outcomes that can be delivered in practice.
The work sits at the intersection of business, technology and execution, where alignment is straightforward in principle and considerably less so in practice.
In simple terms, the aim is to ensure that good ideas remain intact once they meet the real world.
Arrowhead Technology
Arrowhead is more technical in nature, covering architecture, design and implementation support. This includes prototyping, system design and working through how ideas move from concept to production without losing coherence along the way.
In practice, this often involves taking something that made sense in theory and discovering where it needs to change in order to survive contact with reality.
Family Chartered Accountancy & Tax Advisory Practice
I am also involved in a long-established family practice focused on accountancy and tax advisory (HNW/UHNW). This provides a more traditional perspective on business, and a useful counterbalance to the newer ventures, particularly in areas where detail, discipline and regulatory reality matter most.
It also serves as a useful reminder that, regardless of how modern something sounds, it eventually needs to reconcile properly.
Bad Management
Bad Management is a writing project about the messy reality of modern workplaces, based partly on things I have observed and partly on the uncomfortable realisation that I have occasionally been the problem.
It looks at management failures, organisational absurdities and the small decisions that make work either better or inexplicably worse. The aim is not simply to complain, although that is sometimes tempting, but to learn from what tends to go wrong. This is especially true when good intentions, unclear communication and misplaced confidence combine in exactly the wrong proportions.
All of these activities are independent from my role at Deutsche Börse Group and are pursued separately.
