Company

John established SIDE™ Securities Industry Data Exchange and successfully launched the highly innovative post-trade market infrastructure platform (2018) in collaboration with a global investment bank. Prior to establishing SIDE, John founded First North™, a leading consulting company servicing the regulated investment industry, including wealth management and capital markets firms.

John began his career at Canadian Depository for Securities (TMX Group), where he earned nine promotions over a twelve-year period. He managed all technology services provided to CDS’s 100+ Participants, followed by CDS Innovations where he also served as advisor to the CEO on business & technology integration. He was instrumental in the development and delivery of CDS’s no touch financial messaging service that carried 120 billion dollars of daily value. In doing so, John became the number one reference worldwide for IBM’s MQ-Series messaging software product. John led the technology portion of CDS’s merger with West Canada Depository & Clearing Corp., and developed and implemented CDS’s SWIFT services, including successful pilot projects with Bank of Canada (Cash Management), Merrill Lynch (Trade Reporting), and Sicovam-France, JSCC-Japan, and Crest-UK for inter-depository linkages.

Following CDS, John worked in both New York and Toronto in senior roles involving institutional sales & trading, and innovative technology products. These include for Goldman Sachs, New Era of Networks, Selero, Nunami Securities LLC., and Fidelity National Information Services. As Vice-President, John was also responsible to RBC Royal Bank executive for all aspects of the Mutual Funds Order Management System delivered to their 1,200 Advisors (IIROC) and 1,300 Bank Branches (MFDA).

John directs product and service innovation for institutional asset managers, including Keystone.

John founded Keystone Fund Solutions Inc., an open-sourced business process outsourcing service for investment managers. The service platform focuses on delivering operational efficiency and cost control to a diverse group of asset managers.

Prior to SIDE’s acquisition of Keystone in January 2021, John collaborated with SIDE as industry thought leader for the “Buy-Side”. Together, John and SIDE developed and tested the full automation of Keystone’s business processes, thereby reducing cost and risk to asset managers and to the industry.

John has 20+ years’ experience in the investment management industry. He began his career at one of Canada’s premier boutique Hedge Funds and has since directed the end-to-end development, deployment, and operation of multi-asset Buy-Side operating platforms. He ascended the ranks through progressive promotions and for transforming the operating model at an emerging asset manager, into a leading-edge platform capable of servicing a diverse multi-billion-dollar fund lineup. John has experience with Excel, Pacer, Bloomberg, SSC Recon, GWP, AIM, and has utilized these technology platforms while leading cross-functional teams with a mandate to increase efficiency and reduce cost in a variety of areas, including fund launch, external audit, and operations.

Yogi provides direction for all SIDEx technology infrastructure, including SIDEcloud, SIDEintegrate, and SIDEchain.

As head of technology research for SIDE, Yogi led the development of SIDE’s cryptographically verifiable data integrity system known as ‘ISA – Independent Software Auditor” and has developed significant domain expertise in area of decentralized finance (DeFi), including distributed ledger technology (DLT), tokenized assets, consensus algorithms, and advanced security features such as encryption key management.

Prior to joining SIDE, Yogi worked within First North’s data & analytics practice where he delivered regulatory compliance projects for key First North customers, including RBC.

Yogi has 20 years’ experience with IBM for enterprise level workflow automation, application architecture and business application development. His proficiencies with IBM’s WebSphere, Infosphere and related technologies, such as DataStage enabled him to successfully deliver multiple enterprise workflow automation applications. Yogi also designed and developed a flagship workflow automation application for IBM’s client (AT&T) that managed change requests with workflow approvals for 2000+ Network Engineers.

Tim is SIDE’s Head of Development, including for SIDEintegrate, our data integration technology application. Tim has over 25 years of software development experience building enterprise systems for a variety of industries including: financial services, utilities and marketing. Given his Financial Markets experience (including with Bank of Montreal) and his knowledge of both industry standard protocols (e.g. FIX) and enterprise data warehouse technologies, Tim is the lead developer for SIDEchain.

Tim graduated from the University of Waterloo with Honours Bachelor of Mathematics majoring in Computer Science in 1990.