NEW YORK & LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--OpenFin, the financial industry’s first common operating layer for desktop applications, today announced that Paul Walker, former co-head of Technology for Goldman Sachs, has joined the Board of Directors. The newest board member joins six other financial industry leaders in helping to provide guidance and insight to a pioneering company focused on the underpinnings of technology in capital markets.
At Goldman Sachs, Paul most recently served in a senior technical role as co-head of the Technology Division. He joined Goldman Sachs in 2001, and during his career led many of Goldman’s efforts in risk, analytics, clearing and systems architecture. Paul is an active philanthropist, working with organizations that provide opportunity and social capital to young adults through access to education, science and critical reasoning. He earned a PhD in Physics and an MSc in Physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a BA in Physics from Cornell University.
Paul Walker, Former Co-Head of Technology for Goldman Sachs: “Open, mutually agreed-upon standards for the secure and robust delivery of applications are critical for the financial services industry, and OpenFin is well positioned to be the leader in the space. Theirs is an ambitious goal, and I look forward to helping deliver an open industry-wide platform that effects real change and helps define a new standard of security and efficiency.”
Mazy Dar, CEO of OpenFin: “Paul’s experience at Goldman building risk systems and co-heading the firm’s 9000 person technology organization gives him a unique perspective on how our customers will benefit from the OpenFin platform. His depth of experience in the details of application development and analytics and his advocacy for open source software will help make our product more robust, secure, and innovative.”
Paul will serve as an Independent Director on the OpenFin Board. He joins six other highly distinguished Board Members including:
• Samuel Cole, Former COO at BlueMountain Capital
• Matt Harris, Bain Capital Ventures
• Dinkar Jetley, Pivot Investment Partners
• Dirk Manelski, J.P. Morgan
• Michael McFadgen, Euclid Opportunities
• Thomas Miglis, Nyca Partners
In February 2017, OpenFin closed a $15MM Series B round of venture funding led by J.P. Morgan, Bain Capital Ventures and Euclid Opportunities. OpenFin technology powers applications across more than 125,000 desktops, including applications from 40 of the world’s largest banks and trading platforms. OpenFin uses a modern, open technology stack to create a common operating layer for these applications, enabling rapid development and deployment, while simultaneously improving security.
In May 2017, OpenFin released an open source version of their software solution in a project named Hadouken. The technology underpinning OpenFin is Google’s Chromium engine that runs on Windows, Mac and Linux and provides a highly secure, sandboxed environment for financial desktop applications.
About OpenFin
Move fast. Break nothing. OpenFin is the financial industry’s first common operating layer, enabling rapid and secure deployment, native experience and desktop interoperability. The world’s largest banks and trading platforms use OpenFin to deploy desktop applications both in-house, and to their buy-side and sell-side customers. OpenFin investors include Bain Capital Ventures, DRW Venture Capital, Euclid Opportunities, J.P. Morgan, Nyca Partners and Pivot Investment Partners among others. The company is based in New York with offices in London.
