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Aachen, December 2021 – aixigo, a leading European provider of trusted next-generation technology to the wealth management and retail banking industries, appointed seasoned FinTech entrepreneur and executive Arnaud Picut as its Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
Picut has over 20 years of experience in the financial technology industry. He was co-founder and managing director of Almonde, a French provider of regulatory risk management software acquired by LSE-listed Misys (today Finastra) in 2005. Since then, Picut had held long-time senior leadership roles as VP International at Luxembourg banking software vendor FERNBACH in London and Hong Kong, as well as Head of APAC for Buy-Side Platform, Global Head of Risk & Analytics and, lately, as Global Head of OpenPlatform Adoption at Finastra (formerly Misys) in Hong Kong, one of the largest FinTech companies in the world.
He brings significant experience in realising product, sales and market potential within software technology organisations globally. In his new role, Picut will be based in aixigo's Aachen headquarters in Germany, and his initial focus will be on strengthening the vendor's position across Europe and Asia.
Picut will assume the role and responsibilities of CEO. Christian Friedrich, the co-founder and former Chief Business Officer (CBO) will take on the role of Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) where he will oversee aixigo's solution and product strategy, joined by Tobias Haustein, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of aixigo.
Picut's appointment as CEO follows the acceleration of aixigo's growth strategy after the investment by fronttrail Equity Partners in aixigo in November 2018. Over the last three years, aixigo has significantly strengthened its state-of-the-art Wealth Management Platform for next-generation advisory and digital wealth management solutions for the wealth management and retail banking industries. Since then, aixigo has gained further customer traction from leading European wealth managers and large financial institutes. In parallel, aixigo expanded its geographic footprint in core markets across Europe, opening new offices in Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
Upon his appointment, Arnaud Picut, CEO of aixigo, said: "I am delighted to take up this leadership role at aixigo. With an award-winning product offering, aixigo's innovative client-first culture and very strong R&D, sales, and delivery teams, we are well-positioned to capitalise on the investments made since fronttrail acquired an interest in the company. My new role as CEO will see me work with aixigo's talented team to drive the next phase of growth in Europe, Asia and beyond, and to ensure that both our high-performance aixigo:BLOXX Wealth Management Platform and Solution Kits for investment advisory, portfolio monitoring and analysis, portfolio management and financial planning are rapidly adopted in the market to deliver the data-enabled, digitally-connected, and content-rich services for new wealth experiences today's customers demand."
Christian Friedrich, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of aixigo, commented: "When we started aixigo twenty years ago, we envisioned to build a firm that would constantly innovate and create leading-edge, reliable and enterprise-ready software technology and solutions for the financial services industry. Over the last couple of years, we have successfully accelerated the process of expanding our next-generation Wealth Management Platform and broad offering of innovative Solution Kits. We have successfully expanded into major European markets, and we have added and will carry on to add strong technological capabilities that will sustain our position as the leading provider of reliable, state-of-the-art technology to the wealth management and retail banking industries that enables them to drive the new wealth experience. Now is the perfect time for me to turn over leadership to Arnaud so he can build on the strong foundations we have created. This will in turn allow me to focus even more on the overall product and Solution Kit strategy as part of our ambitious organic and inorganic growth plan. I wish Arnaud every success and am delighted to work alongside him as we are heading to the next phase in the aixigo success story."
Urs Ehrismann, founder of fronttrail Equity Partners, added: "fronttrail originally took the strategic step to invest in aixigo as it saw a firm with a strong and highly innovative Wealth Management Platform and a broad software solution portfolio, a solid client base of leading European wealth managers and retail banks and an established foothold in German-speaking Europe that, with the right support, had significant, ongoing future growth prospects in EMEA and beyond. Since then, aixigo has achieved a great deal, and Arnaud's appointment and Christian's new role will ensure that the company continues to capitalise on its powerful, modular and highly scalable Wealth Management Platform and Solution Kits to enable financial institutes of all sizes around the globe to deliver new wealth experiences, products and services to its customers."
fronttrail is a specialised expansion and late-stage investor focusing exclusively on European software companies. We partner with extraordinary software founders, entrepreneurs and management teams to rapidly transform their businesses into sustainable leaders and winners in their field. With our deep domain expertise, we actively support the growth, acquisition and transformation plans of our management teams to help them to achieve their operative, financial and strategic goals. Investors behind fronttrail are well-known institutions, family offices and high net worth individuals. fronttrail is based in Wollerau near Zurich, Switzerland, with an office in Luxembourg.
