About us

GFO-X is the UK's first regulated and centrally cleared trading venue dedicated to digital asset derivatives.

UK FCA authorised and regulated, GFO-X is connected to the world's largest financial institutions and has partnered with a leading Clearing House LCH SA. Together this ensures that digital asset derivatives trading and clearing requirements can be met within a secure, highly regulated environment.

GFO-X provides liquidity, institutional connectivity, risk mitigation, high-performance technology and optimised contract specifications.

Evolution vs Revolution

Evolving regulation will bring digital assets into mainstream finance. This transition demands traditional market structures, supported by new technologies, to solve the multiple risks currently associated with the digital asset market.

GFO-X services the significant unmet need of large global institutional participants who require a highly regulated, institutional-grade trading venue for digital asset derivatives, particularly options.

Meet the Team

Arnab Sen

Chief Executive Officer

Twenty years of investment and asset management experience. Founder of Harbour Capital, a fully licensed and regulated multi-strategy investment firm in Hong Kong. A deep understanding of institutional financial trading and operational requirements under a licensed regime (margining, risk management, trading, clearing and settlement). Advisor to multiple successful start-ups. Previous roles include Portfolio Manager at Tiger cub asset manager Nezu Asia, portfolio manager at HSZ Group (US$1.4bn Long Only Fund and L/S fund). Arnab started his career at UBS and has an economics degree from Cambridge University.

Raj Melwani

Chief Operating Officer & Chief Financial Officer

Over twenty-five years investment markets experience specialising in derivatives. Former COO and responsible officer at Harbour Capital. Former Managing Director and Head of Derivative Sales at BofAML and UBS. Spent over a decade as a key relationship manager developing and expanding relationships with both Hedge Funds and Institutions. Focused on understanding client needs and management of portfolio risk. Led & managed large regional teams, distributing both over the counter (OTC) & listed derivatives across the Asia Pacific region with a deep understanding of derivative products, exchanges and regulations. Early in his career Raj managed regional volatility trading books & priced and traded plain vanilla & exotic options at BZW.

Jon Mann

Chief Technology Officer

Twenty years of management experience in software development and information technology operations having managed teams of developers and systems operation staff of more than 200. Jon worked with IBM Global Services and Sun Microsystems, consulting with various regulated entities, including Citibank. Provided solutions for the US Department of Defense in a secure telecommunications manufacturing facility. Worked at Orc software, a sister company to OMX (now NASDAQ). An original member of Eclipse Trading, one of the largest derivative market-making firms in Asia as head of software development for the proprietary high frequency and low latency derivatives market-making platform. Jon has been involved in blockchain and digital asset technology since 2012, and consulted with various large digital asset exchanges and trading firms.

Mark Woodward

Global Head of Compliance and Regulatory Affairs

Over 20 years of experience in operating financial markets for listed and OTC derivatives. During a 19-year career at Intercontinental Exchange, Mark was integral to the launch and development of ICE Clear Europe, London’s first clearing house for 100 years. Mark helped grow the clearing franchise through integration of clearing for NYSE Liffe, ICE Futures US and ICE Endex markets, the launch of Europe’s leading OTC CDS clearing service and a series of new product launches. Mark also managed the launch of the first derivatives contracts for the EU’s carbon trading scheme which is now the world’s leading environmental product suite. Mark also managed the launch of the first derivatives contracts for the EU’s carbon trading scheme, now the leading carbon market. Prior to ICE, Mark worked at BP Plc and the Financial Services Authority. Mark has well-established senior relationships across global financial institutions, market participants and regulatory bodies and is a regular panellist at industry conferences.

Scott Riley

Chief Risk Officer

Over thirty years of finance experience. Senior capital markets professional with a successful track record of building and running global client-facing businesses centered on evolving market infrastructure and regulation. Founding Director of Chi-X Europe, the first pan-European MTF. Responsible for the entire Chi-X Post Trade market model and all post trade solutions (from concept to implementation). Scott has been an active participant in industry developments including being a member of the European Clearing and Settlement working group (which looked at the impacts of post-trade competition, including interoperability) following the introduction of MiFID. Scott has also been active with Central Banks, Regulatory Authorities and Government Organisations (Treasury, Finance, Competition) on the implementation of new market structures.

Jas Shoker

Chief Information Officer

Over twenty-five years’ experience operating technology within the financial markets industry. Built and run high functioning IT operational teams and led the delivery of large technology transformational projects. Former Global Head of Infrastructure and Client Support at Janus Henderson Investors, responsible for 100+ staff covering all aspects of infrastructure and support for Janus Henderson’s 25 offices across North/Latin America, EMEA and Asia Pac regions. Other prior roles include Executive Director at Goldman Sachs, where Jas was responsible for building out and running high performance support and infrastructure teams for Goldman’s European Investment Research and Equities business. Jas holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering and Masters in Computer Science and started his career as a software developer for a large software firm before moving into IT trade floor support for a European investment bank.

Nicholas Studholme-Wilson

Chief Operating Officer - Asia

Over thirty years of investment market experience, predominantly working for hedge funds in London and Hong Kong, managing the business's investment and non-investment sides. Former Chief Operating Officer of ActusRayPartners, an SFC and SEC-licensed quantitative hedge fund, he built the operational and compliance divisions. Before that, he was the COO of HakuCapital and Richlink. Having launched businesses in multiple jurisdictions, he has built a diverse knowledge base in financial markets, and as a technology analyst for over 20 years, he has closely followed innovation.

Thavy Read

Head of HR

Over fifteen years of experience in Human Capital services across various industry sectors within APAC and EMEA. She has a proven track record in recruiting mid to senior-level executives across financial and professional services (legal, accounting, and media), with a network that spans investment, retail, and private banking. Highly skilled across multiple verticals, including Recruitment, Project Management, Executive Search, Employee Engagement, Performance Management, Talent Development, and firmwide D&I initiatives. Thavy has a passion for helping businesses grow, securing and developing the right talent for current and future needs. She has been based in Asia for over nineteen years and has a Bachelor of Arts in Chinese and Economics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Alex Lenhart

Head of Sales and Membership

Over twenty-five years investment markets experience specialising in listed derivatives. Former Chief Representative at SGX for the US and UK based in London. In this role, Alex and the UK/US team developed and expanded the relationships with exchange members, institutional clients and high frequency trading firms. Former Managing Director and Head of Prime Derivative Services at Credit Suisse in London and former Manager Director and Head of Listed Derivative sales and execution at UBS in NY. Led and managed regional teams in Europe and US with a focus on listed derivatives execution, sales and clearing. Developed a deep understanding of listed derivative products, exchanges, clients and regulations. Early in his career, Alex was a listed derivative sales person at JPMorgan in Frankfurt and London where he covered German, Swiss and Austrian institutional clients. Prior to his role at JPM, Alex traded fixed income OTC and listed derivative products at DZ Bank.

Greg Griffin

Head of Product Development

Over twenty-five years of experience in financial markets and a derivatives trading specialist. Greg started his career at Hull Trading (subsequently purchased by Goldman Sachs). A former Executive Director Morgan Stanley and Head of Asia Market Making desk and Co-Head of USA options book (one of the largest options primary market makers in the USA). One of the Senior Management Team and Head Quant at Eclipse Options. Founding member of the Electronic Trading Association in HK, helping regulators better understand and improve electronic automated markets. Greg worked with HKEX and SGX designing derivative contract specifications, market-making programs, analyzing anomalous market behaviours and authoring responses to regulator’s request for consultation. Recently, Greg was the general manager of Demarc Capital focused on digital asset quantitative automated trading.

Simon Fraser

Head of Business Development

Over thirty years working at GCM’s specialising in listed derivatives and OTC execution and clearing. Recently a senior advisor at Bell Securities, managing DMA and clearing sales with a particular focus on listed energy derivatives. A former Director at BofAML as Head of APAC F&O Client Solutions and Head of APAC F&O Product Development. Managed regional teams developing APAC clearing and trading solutions across many exchange venues and CCP’s including ASX, BMD, CME, EUREX, FEX, HKEX, JPX, Japannext, KRX, LCH, NSE, SGX, TAIFEX, TFEX, TFX, and TOCOM. Established and managed a client relationship-facing team for proprietary trading and high-frequency firms. Simon has served as a member of the AFMA futures steering committee and the ASX Appeal Tribunal. He has been a regular participant on FIA panels. Earlier in his career, Simon managed regional F&O clearing operations teams at Jardine Fleming and Ord Westpac futures.

Daniel Haas

Head of Software Development

Over twenty years of experience in software development, management and IT. Previously the Head of IT Services for IMC Trading (CH) and subsequently set up their HK office. As a core member of the performance team Daniel focused on improving the performance of the trading systems. Founder, CEO & CIO of Warp Trading. Designed and built from scratch the entire framework, GUI, testing, risk system analysis tools etc. Built extensive back-testing simulation systems, including historical data analysis for pattern reconstruction and genetic simulations. Hired a team to help performance tune and operate a full functionality, low latency, F2B, automated HFT trading system used to trade the Korean and Taiwanese stock market. Daniel has an engineering degree in Computer science from the Zurich University of Applied Science .

Andrew Chart

Head of Operations

Over twenty-five years’ experience working in Capital Markets with a focus on Listed Derivatives – Execution, Clearing and Prime Services. Former Head of Operations at Newedge (previously Fimat prior to its merger with Calyon) during a period of aggressive expansion which saw the Global Group become the largest FCM in terms of volume and open interest cleared in the world. Post the acquisition of Newedge by Societe Generale took up a Front Office Sales and Trading role within the Newedge Prime Services Division. Other prior roles include Prime Services & EMEA Head of ETD Commodities at UBS, and Sales Director at BNP responsible for selling Clearing, Settlement, Custody and Collateral Optimisation solutions to Institutional Clients. Andrew brings deep expertise in execution, clearing, settlement, funding, collateral management, and the regulatory and asset protection frameworks within which firms operate.

Magda Barszczewska

Head of Finance

Over 10 years of experience in accounting and finance within the financial sector in EMEA. Previously the finance director for Makor Securities London Limited. As a core finance team member, Magda managed all European entities. Magda has a proven track record of supporting and growing clients within the equity, fixed income, FX and specialised strategies divisions. Highly skilled in advanced taxation, financial management, and corporate entities across different regions and trading platforms. Magda is passionate about the financial technology industry while implementing and building new processes. Magda is a Chartered Accountant with a Master’s Degree from Warsaw University.

Lee Hogarth

Head of Market Surveillance

With over 35 years of experience, Lee is a seasoned expert in financial futures trading and surveillance. He began as an open outcry pit trader/broker at NatWest Markets on LIFFE, transitioning to 16 years of proprietary trading in derivatives. Notably, he spent 7 years at ICE Benchmark Administration, overseeing surveillance for critical benchmarks like LIBOR, LBMA Gold and Silver fixings, US Treasury closing prices, and Interest Rate Swaps.

Alicia Ju

Project Manager

Nearly a decade of experience in financial services across the US and Europe. Previously an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs, Alicia project managed division-wide and cross-divisional large-scale deliverables across sales and trading, operations, technology, risk and controllers. Earlier in her career, Alicia delivered assurance services to banking and capital market clients at Deloitte in New York and London, managing teams across EMEA, the Americas and Asia. Alicia has a Bachelor of Business Administration from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University.

Dom Penton

Non-Executive Chairman

Over twenty-five years of investment markets experience. Former Managing Director and Head of Equity Sales at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong and the UK. Key relationship manager for top tier institutional accounts across a complex product suite, including prime brokerage services. Considerable experience implementing and monitoring compliance to best in class internal and external rules and regulations. Recent roles include product development at Floww, a disruptive venture capital platform, and strategic financial consultant to Block.one on crypto-related projects. An active investor in early-stage fintech companies. Previously licensed with the Hong Kong SFC and FINRA.

Frederick Towfigh

Chairman Asia Pacific

Over 25 years of Asia-Pacific financial markets experience, Fred currently serves as a strategic advisor to several early-stage fintechs. Fred is a former Operating Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisors and a retired Partner and past President of Goldman Sachs (Singapore) Pte. He spent over 22 years at Goldman Sachs, holding various roles in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore. Fred headed Asia Pacific Prime Brokerage, Futures, Electronic Trading and Synthetic Products before assuming responsibility for the firm’s overall Equities and FICC franchises in Southeast Asia. Fred is a Japan Regional Board Member of Room to Read. He earned a BA from the University of California, Irvine and an MBA from Georgetown University.

James Paradise

Senior Board Advisor

Over thirty years of experience in financial markets at Goldman Sachs. James was previously co-president of Asia Pacific Ex-Japan and head of the Global Markets Division in Asia Pacific. He served as a member of the Firmwide Management Committee, Asia Pacific Management Committee, Global Markets Division OpComm, Asia Pacific Conduct and Operational Risk Committee, Firmwide Enterprise Risk Committee and Global Inclusion and Diversity Committee. He was also co-chair of the Asia Pacific Inclusion and Diversity Committee. James joined Goldman Sachs in 1989 to establish the Japanese equity-linked warrant business. In 1997, he established the European Emerging Markets business. In 2000, James relocated to Asia, where he was responsible for the Prime Brokerage business, Derivatives Sales and Distribution to Hedge Funds. He returned to London in 2004 to head International Prime Services. James became co-head of Global Prime Services in 2008. He was named Managing Director in 2000 and partner in 2004.

Pierre-Dominique Renard

Strategic Advisor

Pierre-Dominique has 30-years of experience in financial markets, especially in Market Infrastructures such as Euronext, Clearnet SA and LCH SA, the Paris-based CCP of LSEG. Pierre-Dominique was appointed Chief of Staff of LCH SA in 2014 after occupying various positions in the company as Executive Director – Customer, Market & Infrastructure Director and Head of Repo & Exchanges Director. He managed the relationships with upstream (Exchanges and MTFs) and downstream (I-CSDs) partners and market participants. Pierre-Dominique was responsible for implementing major European marketplace projects such as EMIR, CCP Recovery & Resolution, Target 2 and Target 2 Securities implementations, MiFiD 1 & 2 and CSDR reforms. Pierre-Dominique was an active member of many financial market institutions such as EACH (European Association of Clearing Houses), ICMA, ESMA post Trade Working Group, France Post-Marché (ex AFTI), AMAFI (Association Française des Marchés Financiers) and AFEI (Association Française des Entreprises d’Investissement). Pierre-Dominique is currently the Lead Manager of CBDC experiments program at Banque de France. In parallel, he is teaching digital currencies and CCP clearing at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Careers

Operations Analyst - London

Global Futures and Options Ltd (GFO-X), a UK FCA-authorised and regulated MTF, is seeking an Operations Analyst to join our growing team in London. GFO-X is the UK's first regulated and centrally cleared trading venue dedicated to digital asset derivatives. GFO-X has partnered with LCH SA which will offer clearing of Bitcoin index futures and options contracts traded on GFO-X. This will be made available through a new segregated clearing service, LCH DigitalAssetClear. GFO-X services large global institutional participants who require a regulated, institutional-grade trading venue for digital asset derivatives, including bitcoin index futures and options. GFO-X's operations have eight main pillars : Market Operations, Client Onboarding, Product, Regulatory Reporting, Relationship Management (clients, vendors, and CCP) Management Information, Control and Fees, and Invoicing. The role requires a keen, energetic person with analytical problem-solving skills. GFO-X is in a design, automate, build mode, with a target to launch our trading venue in Q4 2024. The scope of the role is to be part of a fast-growing team and will involve liaison within Operations and with various internal departments - Sales and Membership, Compliance, Trade Surveillance, Finance, and Risk and interacting with our documentation suite. There will also be external facing responsibilities - participants (clients) and our CCP and vendor partners. We have many critical technical processes and workflows to build around our market and then operate. The successful candidate will be a contributor and member of the Operations team. The role is suited for a candidate wishing to enter a career in financial markets. No previous financial services experience is required. Responsibilities: Opportunity to learn on the job about financial markets, market structure, centralized clearing via a CCP, use of technology, data structures, and financial products traded by global institutions. Working on a rotation across the eight pillars within operations Tasks set by Head of Operations or Market Operations manager. Monitoring of GFO-X market - following granular checklists carefully and methodically. Handling questions/enquiries from participants, clients, prospects, and vendor partners. Working with large data sets and the creation of management information. Requirements: Degree holder or high-grade A Levels (finance, science, maths, technology, business administration). Good organizational skills with a strategic mindset. Highly analytical with an attention to detail. Ability to work in a fast-paced and highly collaborative environment. VBA / excel / macros vitally important. SQL Query coding experience or similar experience. Deep knowledge of Microsoft software suite - especially Excel, PowerBI, PowerPoint. Strong communication skills and fluent spoken and written English. Willing to work shifts early (7am) / late (8pm) at and post-launch. This role will be based at our office in London and will report directly to our Operations Manager. Applications from any region are acceptable, but candidates based in the United Kingdom will be given preference. GFO-X is an equal opportunities employer committed to diversity and inclusion. Competitive benefits included. If you are a candidate interested in any of our roles, please apply through the link provided in the job posting. Inquiries from agencies should be directed to recruitment@gfo-x.com. Please refrain from sending recruitment inquiries to any other email address or individual within our organization. GFO-X does not guarantee employment or engagement based solely on inquiry. All unsolicited CVs from agencies shall be treated as such and will not be counted as submission.

United Kingdom

1/F 36-38 Botolph Lane

London

EC3R 8DE

Hong Kong

21/F & 23/F LKF29

29 Wyndham Street

Central

Hong Kong

Global Futures and Options Ltd (GFO-X) is authorised and regulated in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority ("FCA") with firm reference number 945035

Global Futures and Options Ltd is registered in England and Wales under Company Number 13018987