People on the Move

Fifth Third Bank Exec Heads Microsoft Financial Services Architecture Strategy

Mike Walker, a former executive with Fifth Third Bank in Cincinnati, has joined Microsoft as the managing architecture strategist for the financial services vertical. Walker is responsible for driving and evangelizing Microsoft’s worldwide industry and vertical strategy in the banking, insurance and securities segments. Specifically, he ensures that financial services institutions around the world realize the full extent of Microsoft’s vision and value proposition, by overseeing areas such as industry strategy, marketing, solution development, partner development, thought leadership, and executive relations.

Walker joined Microsoft in 2006. His background is as a financial services strategist, specializing in business transformation around technology, but he combines this experience with a strong focus on strategic execution. His prior banking experience involved working as an enterprise architect, developing business strategies, conducting strategic infrastructure planning, and implementing technology projects. His experience includes bespoke and package implementation, enterprise process design and management, applications management and systems selection.

Jim Cramer (center), author and host of CNBC’s Mad Money, was the keynote speaker at a Stockgroup Information Systems seminar sponsored by Microsoft and held in New York in February. At the seminar, titled Technologies that Drive Client Retention and Improve Adviser-Client Communications, Cramer told the audience that institutions that provide the best online experience and best use of technology to the emerging affluent will win. He is pictured here with Stephen Doty, managing director, investment advisor services, The Bank of New York (left) and Craig Saint-Amour, capital markets industry solutions director, Microsoft.

Insurity Names Markland as Chief Technology Architect

Insurity, a provider of business processing services and technology for the property and casualty insurance industry, has named Jerry Markland as chief technology architect.

Markland has 25 years experience as an executive, enterprise architect and system engineer, most recently with Benefits Technology Group (BTG) where he was responsible for strategy and product development for human resources and benefits-related technology for brokers and general agencies. He was also co-founder and CTO of StarNex, a company that linked brokers and insurance companies online, and previously held positions with AMS and StarSolutions designing and developing insurance processing software.

Last May Insurity, which is a ChoicePoint company, and Microsoft entered into a multi-year alliance to more closely align future software development and participate in joint marketing and sales activities globally.

Former Microsoft Exec Becomes Infusion COO

Christian Schneider, former Microsoft business productivity strategist, has left the company to become chief operating officer for Infusion Development Corporation. He had spent four years at Microsoft.

Founded in 1998, Infusion is a rapidly growing application development and systems integration firm focused mostly on emerging Microsoft technologies. It has 120 employees and concentrates primarily on the financial services and government sectors.

The company has several close ties to Microsoft. The company joined Steve Ballmer in a presentation he gave in New York in January. In addition, Infusion Angels, a Toronto-based sister company of Infusion Development, opened a Microsoft Canada-backed Infusion Angels Innovation Centre in Waterloo, Canada, in January. The center’s focus is on developing innovative ideas and business plans on Microsoft platform-based technologies and matching projects with investment income from Infusion Angels, which is a full service incubator and angel investor.

Rasch and Drescher Join Microsoft EMEA Financial Services Team

Microsoft’s Europe, Middle East and Africa financial services industry team has added two new senior directors, with Michael Rasch joining as industry director of banking, and Andreas Drescher taking the role of director, global partners, for the financial services industry. The appointments were announced in January.

In his new role, Rasch will be tasked with helping banks create and sustain profitable customer relationships, develop innovative products and services and improve operations through banking technology solutions. He will be responsible for establishing, driving and coordinating the overall banking strategy for the EMEA region. Previously, Rasch was a partner at IBM Business Consulting Services and spent 12 years as a consulting partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

As director of global partners, Drescher will manage Microsoft’s strategy and sales execution with global financial services partners to deliver business value to customers through comprehensive technology solutions. Previously, Drescher was financial services director at Microsoft in Germany, having joined the company in 1998 as director of the southwest region of Germany. Before working at Microsoft, Drescher spent 14 years at Hewlett Packard in a variety of roles, including managing the company’s worldwide SAP business.

Woodruff’s Boulder Move in Institutional Research

Jeffrey Woodruff has moved to Boulder, CO-based Wall Street on Demand, where he is overseeing an effort to build a new institutional research offering for institutional customers.

Woodruff, who was most recently managing director for sales and marketing for Code:Red, is also a longtime veteran of Reuters and the former Bridge Information Systems before it was acquired by Reuters.

In fact, his connection to Wall Street on Demand dates back about eight years ago to his Bridge days. When Bridge was building out its browser-based BridgeChannel product, it did a lot of work with online brokers that were clients of Wall Street on Demand as well, Woodruff said.

Woodruff is enthusiastic about the potential for the new product. “On the content side, the landscape for research is changing. We looked at what we could develop for institutional customers and we felt we have something really compelling,” he said, noting that the company has relationships with 10 of 12 settlement firms, 5 of 6 top online brokers, 1500 data feeds and maps 100 different symbols for content aggregation. The company also has relationships with major news outlets like The New York Times, Investor’s Business Daily, the Financial Times and others.

Woodruff oversees a team of 15 in design, development, engineering and on the business side for the new project and expects an April launch of the new research initiative. Wall Street on Demand is all SQL server on the back end and they are developing using C#, VML and SVG.

Meanwhile, the move from New York City to Boulder has allowed him plenty of ski time at Vail and given him the chance to train at high altitudes for the New York Marathon this fall.

Former AMEX President Joins Gain Capital’s Board

Gain Capital Group LLC, an independent provider of foreign exchange services, including direct access trading and asset management, has added Peter Quick, formerly of Quick & Reilly and the American Stock Exchange to its Board of Directors.

Quick served as president of the American Stock Exchange from July 2000 to April 2005. Prior to AMEX, he was president and chief executive officer of Quick & Reilly, a national discount brokerage acquired by FleetBoston Financial Corp. (now Bank of America) in 1998.

Gain Capital CEO Mark Gallant said that in addition to Quick’s impressive financial career, his “real world experience in the complexities of operating a rapidly growing online brokerage business” would add value to the firm.

Gain Capital is a Microsoft-based shop with much of its online offering geared toward Internet Explorer and Windows.