December performance and newsletter

Head of Digital Asset Strategy

Richard founded macro research firm PinPoint Macro Analytics in June 2020 and joins DAFM on a part-time basis as the Head of Digital Asset Strategy. Richard previously worked as the Chief Currency Strategist and Head of International Economics at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) for 15 years. Prior to working at CBA, Richard worked in various roles in both Sydney and London as an International economist and currency strategist, at National Australia Bank, WestDeutsche Landesbank (WestLB), Colonial State Bank, and Dominguez Barry (now UBS).

Richard holds a Bachelor of Economics and a Masters of Economics from Macquarie University. In addition to some occasional Economics tutoring at Macquarie University, Richard worked at Macquarie University’s Asia Pacific Research Institute, and more recently, spent three years as an Honorary Associate at the University of Technology (UTS) Sydney.

Head of Operations

Lissete is a qualified chartered accountant with over 10 years experience in the finance industry both domestic and international. Starting her career at Westpac in Sydney, Lissete worked in various finance functions before moving to London where she worked at Credit Suisse.  Here Lissete worked in the Global Risk Management group where she managed the relationship with numerous international banking regulators including the regulatory and risk reporting function.

Senior Software Engineer

Sergey holds over 33 years of experience in software engineering, system design, and architecture. Organisations such as Keycorp, CiSRA (Canon Imaging R&D), Aristocrat, and Google have trusted Sergey in every step of the system and application development lifecycle. Role highlights include technical project architect at Keycorp (next-generation payment terminal), principal software engineer at CiSRA, and staff software engineer at Google.

In addition to the current financial trading projects at DAFM, Sergey has worked on key projects that include Eftpos system design, Google Maps, and large-scale print rendering systems. At DAFM, Sergey is developing the trading exchange interfaces for cryptocurrency trading.

Head of Technology

Colin has extensive experience in creating comprehensive solutions to complex problems: integrating software, hardware and domain expertise together to produce elegant and usable solutions. He has worked in a diverse range of problem domains: computer-controlled embroidery, real-time video editing, typesetting, call centre command and control, high-performance object-oriented databases, writing systems for the world’s fastest inkjet printer and very low latency HFT trading in markets around the world. He has worked at world-renowned research facilities such as Bell Labs Research and Canon Information Systems Research Australia (CiSRA) and also in many R&D start-ups growing teams from green fields. Colin now brings his diverse range of experience together to lead the development of a world-leading cryptocurrency trading system.

Trading

After completing a BSc (1st Class honours in Applied Mathematics) at Monash University, Dan moved to London beginning his career at Credit Suisse in the early 2000s. His first role was in product control, focused on the valuation, booking, accounting treatment and P&L reporting of the exotic derivative business. He gained 5 years of experience in that role before moving to Hong Kong in 2006. In Hong Kong, he worked on Credit Suisse’s hybrid derivatives desk until moving to Royal Bank of Canada in 2009 as a swaps trader, and then in 2010 to Zurich to start a long-dated FX option business for UBS. He remained in Zurich until 2016, trading various complex derivative portfolios including running the European emerging markets FX options business.

Upon his return to Australia in 2019 Dan immersed himself in the rapidly emerging cryptocurrency derivative markets. With his extensive background across numerous derivative markets he quickly identified opportunities in this space, particularly in the funding/futures markets that were, and to a large extent still are, nascent. While seeing the opportunity he didn’t have the technical skills to create the kind of systems that could effectively monetise these opportunities. The team at DAFM, with their extensive background in trading traditional financial markets using sophisticated algorithms developed in-house and proprietary trading systems provided a perfect matching of skills to create a business.

Founder and Director

Mike Gilbert is a New Zealand national with 30 years’ experience spanning derivatives trading & broking, high-frequency trading and Clearing in the London, Hong Kong and Sydney financial markets.

In London Mike headed up the equity derivatives broking team for OMX London for three years before moving into trading Scandinavian equities derivatives for 7 years for a London based market-making firm. From 2004 to 2012 Mike worked for Newedge Bank (owned by Societe Generale) in Australia and Hong Kong where he held the position of Managing Director responsible for the High-Frequency Trading (HFT) and Clearing divisions for Asia Pacific. Over these 8 years, Mike significantly grew the business for the bank in terms of both the revenue and customer base.

Mike co-founded Ark International Group (AIG) in 2012 where he is responsible for business development, compliance and managing day to day operations. With experience in building strong frameworks around new products to ensure their success, Mike’s expertise fits in well with the other members of the DAFM team.

Founder and Director

Clint is an Australian national with over 18 years of experience trading complex derivative products. He studied Aerospace Engineering at the Australian Defence Force Academy before transferring to the University of New South Wales to complete a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering (First Class Honours).

He started his career at IMC in Sydney, an international derivatives trading house, while completing a Master of Commerce specialising in Funds Management. In 2006 he went on to co-found Tibra, where he started and managed the Japanese and Korean trading desks that regularly traded up to 10% of the daily derivatives volume as well as holding the role of Director of Tibra’s emerging investment management business.

Clint co-founded Ark International Group (AIG) in 2012. Over the course of his career Clint has successfully navigated several major financial disruptions and continues to build AIG’s presence in the global markets during a volatile period in the world’s history. With the launch of Digital Asset Funds Management (DAFM) and the pivot into digital assets, Clint’s vast experience will ensure a sensible and risk averse approach is taken by the experienced team at DAFM.