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Akber Jaffer was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Smartstream Technologies Group in September 2023. He brings over 30 years of executive and operational experience working in the start-up and scaled software and technology businesses.

He began his career as a management consultant, advising global software and technology companies primarily in the Financial Services sector. Part of Akber’s past experience includes his time working at Colt Technology in Europe. While there he launched and operated their Data Centre business. This was followed by a move to Asia, as a general manager, with a mandate to grow the region. Most recently Akber was part of the executive leadership at Finastra, leading strategy, transformation, M&A, and significant parts of the P&L for the group.

Akber holds a B.Sc. in Economics and Technology as well as an MSc in Information Systems. Additionally, he attended the AMP program at HBS. Akber is based out of London and married with three children.

Richard joined Smartstream in January 2017 as Chief Financial Officer, he is responsible for all aspects of finance, treasury, administration and financial strategy.

Richard brings over 20 years’ experience in the financial services industry. He previously worked as the CFO of Asset Control and prior to that he worked for the New York Stock Exchange as CFO for Europe and Asia in the NYSE Technologies division. Earlier in his career Richard had senior finance roles at BT Global Services, BT Radianz, and Reuters.

Richard holds a first class honours degree in Industrial Economics from Nottingham University and is a Chartered Management Accountant (ACMA).

Andreas Burner, Chief Technology Officer of Smartstream Technologies; has been with Smartstream since 1997 and has over 20 years of experience in building financial service solutions for leading international banks. He is the head of the Smartstream Innovation Lab with a mission to establish a culture of innovation within Smartstream. Andreas works closely with all teams to identify, prototype, and deliver new technologies to the Smartstream product range. His team of researchers are working on blockchain and artificial intelligence technology.

In parallel, Andreas pursued an international academic career and contributed to the field of machine learning in the medical domain with AI technology that assist in the diagnoses of diseases.

Andreas holds a MSc in Computer Science with a specialisation in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Technology, Vienna, and a MA in Mediation and Coaching from ARGE Educational Management, Vienna.

Linda Coffman is Executive Vice President, responsible for overseeing Smart Data services. She joined the reference data product management team in 2015 and was responsible for key initiatives across the listed derivative and regulatory services.

With over 25 years of experience in the reference data industry, Linda has been a member of the reference data team at Morgan Stanley where she was instrumental in the creation of a fixed income security master and the onboarding of vendor data. Earlier in her career, she worked for an industry joint venture, responsible for managing a data operations and development team covering fixed income and securitised products.

Bharat Malesha joined Smartstream in 2014 as solution manager for the TLM Fees and Expense Management business. Bharat has extensive global knowledge within the financial services industry in execution cost management. He is an information management professional with over 20 years of experience in business process management, business analysis, information architecture, and design trading and accounting platforms.

Prior to joining Smartstream, Bharat spent over seven years as a Director at Credit Suisse heading their product development.

Nick Smith joined Smartstream in 2017 and is responsible for the Managed Services business.
Nick brings with him 25 years of experience in the financial services industry, with extensive knowledge in process management, solution development, managing risk and control and development of centres of excellence.

Prior to joining Smartstream, Nick held a range of senior roles with leading investment banks, including: Barclays, Credit Suisse and Nomura.

David is responsible for all aspects of Human Resources worldwide. He joined Smartstream in December of 2008. Prior to this he gained extensive international HR experience with Shell, Thomson Financial and International SOS.

David graduated from the University of Glasgow with honours in Political Economy and Economic History and is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

Claudia Giunta has extensive experience practicing law in the financial data management software industry. Claudia joined Smartstream in 2016 as General Counsel and is responsible for all legal and corporate governance matters. Claudia was previously General Counsel at Asset Control, where she established and led the company’s first legal department for her 14-year tenure. Prior to Asset Control, she served as Counsel in the legal department of the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC. Claudia graduated summa cum laude from the University of Catania Law School in Italy and holds Masters of Laws degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Georgia. She is admitted to practice in the United States and in Italy and is a member of the New York Bar.