London

Avaloq Snatches Doug McCourt from IBM

Avaloq has appointed Doug McCourt as Head of Key Account Management UK, based in London, and reporting to Jonathan Davis, UK Managing Director.

The 25-year sales and business development veteran will be responsible for developing key account relationships, expanding Avaloq’s presence in the UK, and accelerating the development of the business’ digital platforms.

Joining from IBM, where he was Global Client Executive, Banking & Financial Markets, McCourt will now lead the team of Key Account Managers. The UK operation has now over 160 members of staff, including around 50 in the London office. Prior to IBM, he held senior positions at Computacenter, Telefonica, and Gartner.

Avaloq’s UK operation targets wealth managers and private banks who look to shift to in-house or outsourced digital business models amid increased compliance requirements and the growing focus on ESG from both institutions themselves and private clients.

Doug McCourt, Head of Key Account Management UK at Avaloq, commented: “I am excited to join Avaloq at this pivotal moment for the banking and wealth management sectors. London continues to be a leading fintech hub and the UK team is well placed to respond to the challenges of the fast-digitizing UK wealth management sector and the shift to cloud-based operating models.”

Jonathan Davis, UK Managing Director, Avaloq, said: “We are delighted to welcome Doug to our London team. Doug’s strong leadership skills and wealth of industry expertise will be instrumental in Avaloq’s ongoing growth in the UK market, as we continue to expand our capabilities as the leading provider of BPaaS and SaaS solutions for the UK wealth management sector”.

In 2020, Avaloq has recently launched three solutions – Avaloq Engage, Avaloq Wealth, and Avaloq Insight – for social messaging channels, the need for greater service personalization, and advanced data analytics, respectively.

In November 2019, Avaloq acquired Derivative Partners AG, a Zurich-based information and data provider for structured products and derivatives in Switzerland. Its analytical services are being leveraged to offer both established and new clients the independent valuation, trading and management of highly complex financial instruments such as structured products and ETF markets.

Also in 2019, Avaloq partnered with algorithmic trading software provider AlgoTrader to make the digital asset management ecosystem available to its extensive banking and wealth management clients worldwide so they can manage their automated crypto trading and to get access to all major crypto exchanges through a robust FIX API.