Israeli social trading and multi-asset brokerage company eToro has picked Meron Shani to take on the role of Chief Financial Officer. His promotion follows the resignation of its outgoing CFO and deputy CEO Shalom Berkovitz.
Meron has joined eToro back in 2019 as vice president of finance. At the company, he was involved into a suite of responsibilities including finance, legal, compliance, and risk management. He steps into his new role equipped with a lengthy resume in the igaming industry, where he has served in various finance positions for more than 19 years.
Before landing at eToro, he held senior roles at PokerStars, an online poker cardroom that was a part of The Stars Group until it was sold to Flutter Entertainment two years ago. There he worked for nearly nine years based out of Isle of Man between 2010 and 2019.
That was preceded by a three year-tenure at 888, a public company which owns several popular gambling brands and websites, including 888sport, 888casino and 888poker.
eToro has seen senior hires and departures over the last few months. The broker parted ways in December with Dylan Holmani, who spent there nearly seven years as its head of Global Sponsorships. A month earlier, it promoted Orel Assia to the role of head of growth for its eToro Money program.
The exec moves came shortly after eToro laid off 100 employees, half of them in Israel. This number represents around 6% of the company’s total workforce.
At the same time as announcing the cuts, eToro abandoned its plans to go public at $10 billion valuation after it canceled its SPAC deal with Betsy Cohen-backed blank-check firm. Worse still, the social investment work is reportedly in talks to close a private funding round of roughly $1 billion, but at only $5-6 billion valuation.
On the operations side, eToro acquired the portfolio management business Bullsheet to offer greater visibility into their eToro accounts, as part of its effort to enhance the user experience.
The deal marked the broker’s second acquisition in two months, the latest of which was eToro’s purchase of no-fee trading app Gatsby to expand its business in the US. The takeover, which was around $50 million in cash and common stock, was initially filed for approval by the US Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra) back in December 2021.
