CAIS appoints Head of Data
November 16, 2021 | Hedgeweek
Alternative investment platform CAIS has appointed George Davies, PhD, as its new Head of Data. Based in the Company’s New York office, Davies will report to Shane Williams, Chief Technology Officer.
“We are delighted to welcome George to this newly created position,” says Williams. “George’s track record working with data to enhance areas such as risk management, trade modelling, and pricing will complement our efforts to employ CAIS’ own data for trend spotting, creating personalised experiences for advisors, delivering meaningful engagements for managers, and informing business decisions.”
Davies has worked with technology platforms across wealth advisory, asset management, and trading for more than 20 years. He most recently served as Vice President of Data for personal finance technology platform SmartAsset, where he managed the company’s data engineering and data science teams while scaling system architecture. Davies also served as Chief Data Officer for fintech companies TraverseIQ and iSentium, and as a Quantitative Analyst for UBP Asset Management, ART Advisors, and Scotia Capital Markets. He earned his PhD in Astrophysics from Queen’s University.
“Having worked with a variety of financial technology companies throughout my career, I was immediately attracted to CAIS’ entrepreneurial mindset and the transformational impact this company is having across the financial advisory and asset management communities,” says Davies. “I look forward to working with Shane and the team as they continue to increase access and education around alternative asset classes for advisors, so they can help their clients realise supplemental income and higher returns.”
In this role, George will be managing teams that develop predictive analytics and machine learning across all business functions, seeking to enhance outcomes for all constituents within the CAIS community.
“George’s hiring reflects our efforts to attract quality talent from all areas of financial services,” says Matt Brown, Founder and CEO. “With a Head of Data in place, we will deepen our efforts to extract valuable insights from the front and back ends of our platform, which should lead to greater outcomes for the wealth management ecosystem that we serve.”
Transaction volumes on the CAIS platform were 74 per cent higher in the third quarter of 2021 compared to the prior year. The number of advisors on the CAIS platform also grew 89 percent year-over-year. Due to this increase in demand, CAIS has added 85 employees across all areas of the organisation within that same time frame.
