CTO | CIO | Group Technology Leadership

Richard
Forss

Chief Technology Officer of a global multi-asset brokerage — leading a 230-person division across 60+ regulated markets. Thirty years building the platforms banks, brokers and hedge funds trade on.

Richard Forss
Based in
Zug, Switzerland
Focus
Banks, Brokers & Hedge Funds
Experience
30+ Years
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230+
Technology Division
60+
Regulated Markets
CHF 25m+
Technology Budget
99.99%
Uptime Target

Background

Technology executive with more than thirty years of leadership across financial technology platforms in regulated European markets — from designing and building Deutsche Bank’s first online trading platform for convertible bonds, to replacing the trade-execution platform of Deutsche Börse Group’s digital-asset subsidiary Crypto Finance, to running the technology division of a global multi-asset brokerage today. I have led large-scale modernisation programmes, rationalised complex product estates and built secure cloud-native data platforms that support growth, resilience and improved client outcomes.

My experience spans B2B SaaS, wealth and trading platforms, digital asset infrastructure and institutional risk systems. I have built and led geographically distributed engineering and operations teams of more than 200 professionals, introducing disciplined governance, financial control and product operating models aligned to commercial performance.

Institutional Innovation

Designed and built Deutsche Bank's first online trading platform for convertible bonds (dbconvertibles.com) — Euromoney award winner four consecutive years.

Serverless Risk Engineering

Architected an AWS Lambda-based risk engine reducing processing time from 20 hours to 20 minutes for millions of calculations.

Enterprise AI Strategy

Leading EXANTE’s AI strategy: LLMs embedded across engineering, operations and client-facing products (20–30% productivity gains) — and a radical rethink of the whole development process, building towards an AI-native software factory.

10× Platform Scalability

Delivered architectural simplification resulting in a 10× increase in user capacity and order throughput across global markets.


Career

Three decades of technology leadership across global banks, hedge funds, digital-asset businesses and regulated fintech, from London trading floors to FINMA and VQF supervised platforms in Switzerland.

Jul 2024 — Present
EXANTE

Chief Technology Officer

Zug, Switzerland

CTO of a global multi-asset brokerage, accountable for the platform behind every trade placed by high-net-worth, institutional and white-label clients across 60+ regulated markets, including partner firms launching their own branded trading offering on our infrastructure. Lead a 230-person division spanning architecture, engineering, product, cybersecurity, data platforms and IT operations within a 700+ person organisation, accountable for a CHF 25m+ annual technology budget, and have taken the technology function through a full transformation: core trading, market data and risk architecture redesigned to carry 5-10x the throughput and capacity; quarterly delivery predictability lifted from roughly 60% to 90% through structured planning, portfolio governance and capacity forecasting; AI embedded across the SDLC, testing and operations for 20-30% productivity gains with the governance to use it safely under regulation — now extended into a radical rethink of the development process itself, building towards an AI-native software factory in which delivery capacity is no longer constrained by human limitations; the platform being prepared under my leadership for an agentic future, where clients’ personal AI agents connect directly to discover, decide and execute strategies under the same controls as any regulated order flow; and incident management, observability and business continuity rebuilt against DORA, MiFID II and multi-jurisdiction expectations, targeting 99.99% uptime. Restructured engineering and IT leadership, moving the organisation from feature-led delivery to a product operating model with genuine end-to-end ownership, and brought board-grade governance to the technology function: annual planning, portfolio and delivery governance, financial control and board-level reporting.

230-Person Division CHF 25m+ Budget Platform Modernisation DORA / MiFID II AI Software Factory Technology Governance Product Operating Model
Feb 2026 — Present
SCB AG

Director

Zug, Switzerland

Director of SCB, a Zug-based Swiss digital-asset business regulated under the VQF/FINMA framework, providing a fiat-to-crypto on and off-ramp across CHF, EUR and USD into USDC and USDT. My remit is technology and governance oversight: overseeing the platform behind a regulated stablecoin on/off-ramp, and working with the business on VQF, FINMA and wider regulatory and AML obligations. It is the seat where I apply 30 years of platform and regulatory experience as a director exercising oversight rather than an executive running delivery.

Board Oversight VQF / FINMA Stablecoin On/Off-Ramp AML Governance
Feb 2023 — Present
Sicura Partners

Advisor

Sicura matches startups to investors and opens access to startup investments through a syndicate of investors. I advise on the technology side of those decisions, assessing the platforms, engineering teams and architecture behind prospective companies so that investors understand where the technical risk sits, and act as a general business advisor to the firm.

Startup Investment Investor Syndicate Technology Assessment Business Advisory
Feb 2023 — Jul 2024
Crypto Finance AG (Deutsche Börse Group)

Deputy Chief Technology Officer

Zürich, Switzerland

Appointed to strengthen governance, delivery discipline and platform resilience across trading, custody and tokenisation businesses operating under Deutsche Börse Group ownership and FINMA oversight. Led the full replacement of the trade-execution platform from strategy and vendor selection through delivery, modernised the SDLC, CI/CD, architectural standards and automation, established cross-functional engineering guilds for databases, messaging and GCP, and oversaw development of the HSM-integrated signing devices underpinning institutional digital-asset custody.

Deutsche Börse Group HSM Security Digital Assets Platform Replacement
Feb 2020 — Nov 2022
Covario AG

Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer

Zug, Switzerland

Co-founded a digital asset prime brokerage serving high-frequency trading funds, asset managers and family offices. Full accountability for technology strategy, platform architecture, security and engineering leadership from inception through institutional onboarding: designed the low-latency, high-throughput trading architecture, built the governance and risk frameworks for a planned FINMA licence, scaled a 35-engineer organisation with the talent pipeline behind it, and worked directly with clients and investors on strategy and product.

Co-Founder FINMA Licence Low-Latency Trading 35 Engineers
Oct 2012 — Sep 2019
Argentière Capital AG

Chief Technology Officer

Zug, Switzerland

CTO of a USD 3.5bn global hedge fund covering equity volatility, fixed income, distressed and systematic strategies. Recruited as the first employee to design and build the complete trading, data and analytics estate, delivering the portfolio and risk tools used across every front-office team and a serverless AWS risk-calculation engine that cut processing from 20 hours to 20 minutes. Owned technology governance, investor due diligence and board reporting.

$3.5bn AUM AWS Lambda Serverless Risk First Employee
Feb 2012 — Present
altoex.

Founder & Chief Technology Officer

Zug, Switzerland

Founded altoex as an independent venture for consulting and product work in capital markets technology. Early engagements included designing the first REST API for the Imagine Trading System and delivering one of the industry's earliest iPad applications for portfolio and risk visibility. It is now home to SynthTrader, a visual algorithmic trading platform I am building myself. The idea borrows from modular synthesisers: patch modules together with cables and probe the live signal on any connection, like putting an oscilloscope on a circuit. Price flows in, indicators and logic shape it, execution comes out, with no code required. Pre-launch, with a desktop app and cloud execution to follow, and I am still writing the code and making the architecture calls hands-on.

Solo Founder Algo Trading Modular Synthesis Hands-On Build
Feb 2008 — Feb 2012
Arrowgrass Capital Partners LLP

Systems Director

London, United Kingdom

Directed the technology build-out for a multi-billion dollar hedge fund spin-out from Deutsche Bank. Led separation and migration of proprietary trading models, systems and data from a global bank to independent infrastructure.

$8bn Fund DB Spin-out London & NY
Oct 2004 — Feb 2008
Deutsche Bank AG — OMNIS

IT Director

London, United Kingdom

Technology lead for an internal hedge fund incubator preparing for independence. Built distributed pricing and risk systems supporting multi-asset trading strategies.

Pricing & Risk Multi-Asset Trading
Jun 1999 — Sep 2004
Deutsche Bank AG — Convertibles

Project Manager / Senior Developer

London, United Kingdom

Led development of dbconvertibles.com, Deutsche Bank's first online convertible bond trading and analytics platform. Won the Euromoney award four consecutive years.

Euromoney Award ×4 First Online Trading
Early Career
Bankers Trust
Warrants & Convertibles · 1998–1999
Union Bank of Switzerland
Equities Technology · 1994–1998
NatWest Bank
Credit Card Services · 1993–1994
Credit Suisse First Boston
Trading Technology · 1991–1993
Citibank
Strategic Business Solutions · 1990–1991

Technology Domains

Cloud & Infrastructure

AWS GCP Containerisation Kubernetes CI/CD Terraform Observability

Security & Resilience

HSM Secure SDLC SAST/DAST Penetration Testing Operational Resilience Disaster Recovery

Architecture

Microservices Event-Driven API-First Low-Latency Trading FIX Protocol Multi-Asset Platforms

AI & Data

Enterprise AI Strategy LLM Integration Real-Time Streaming Analytics Platforms Data Pipelines

Client & Digital

Online Trading Platforms Digital Assets White-Label Solutions Client Portals

Governance & Regulation

DORA MiFID II FINMA CySEC HK SFC FCA

Recent Thinking

Press mentions and selected posts on technology leadership, architecture and engineering culture.

More writing & press

Mandate & focus areas

Providing strategic technology leadership to financial institutions, fintechs and investment firms at critical inflection points. I take on selective consulting and advisory engagements alongside my executive role.

01

Platform Architecture & Modernisation

Transforming fragmented legacy estates into scalable, cloud-portable platforms. Strategic roadmap definition, architectural simplification and technology governance.

02

Board & Advisory

Non-executive technology counsel for boards navigating platform transformation, regulatory change or digital-asset strategy.

03

Operating Model Transformation

Transitioning technology divisions to modern Product Operating Models with accountable squads, delivery governance and outcome-based oversight.

04

AI Strategy & Engineering Productivity

Enterprise AI strategy definition and implementation. Embedding LLMs into engineering workflows, operations and client-facing products.

05

Operational Resilience & Compliance

Strengthening infrastructure to meet DORA, MiFID II, CySEC and global regulatory standards. 99.99% uptime targeting, observability and incident management.

06

Technology Governance & Financial Control

Financial governance frameworks including annual planning, budget review, CapEx/OpEx classification, IFRS alignment and board-ready reporting.


I keep an active engineering practice alongside the day job — it keeps my architecture judgement current and my opinions about AI-assisted development grounded in shipping real software.

altoex.

A visual algorithmic trading platform built on the modular synthesis paradigm. Traders build strategies by dragging modules onto a canvas and connecting them with colour-coded cables — no programming required. Market data flows through the signal chain in real time, transforming into indicators, decisions, and trade signals at each stage.

Live strategy patch — Mean Reversion (Bollinger + RSI)

Punctual

A macOS menu bar app that refuses to let you miss a meeting. At your chosen lead time a countdown box appears beneath the menu bar — minimal digits, a split-flap airport board, or a retro flip clock — and stays until you join, snooze or dismiss it. It reads every calendar on the Mac, recognises Zoom, Teams, Meet, Webex and Slack links wherever they hide in an invite, shows a map for in-person meetings, and past the start time it turns red, counts up and nags until you give in. Available on the Mac App Store.

Split-flap countdown — ten minutes out
Punctual's split-flap countdown box showing time remaining to the next meeting

Let's talk

Interested in how I can help your organisation with technology strategy, platform transformation, or board advisory?