Redefining the frontier of digital finance

Gino Wirthensohn is Laser Digital’s Chief Legal and Compliance Officer. He joined the company in February 2023 from Sygnum Bank, the world’s first regulated digital asset bank.  At Sygnum, Gino was Chief Legal, Compliance and RegTech Officer. Before joining Sygnum, Gino co-founded an award-winning RegTech/FinTech start-up. Prior to working in the start-up space, he held positions in legal, compliance, and risk management in the banking and audit/consulting industries, and has worked previously in public notary services.

Gino holds a Master of Law from the University of Lucerne and an Executive MBA from the University of Oxford.

Paul Murphy is Chief People Officer and joined Laser Digital from Royal Bank of Canada where he spent nearly 20 years in senior roles across human resources and recruitment, latterly in Global Talent and previously as Head of Recruitment for Europe and Asia Pacific.

Paul started his career at JP Morgan and graduated from the University of Essex with a BSc in Economics.

Hideaki Kudo is a Representative Director and is the head of the Laser’s Japan office. Prior to his appointment at Laser in October 2023, Kudo was an Executive Director in the Digital Asset Strategy Department of Nomura’s Digital Company, responsible for its overall project management, including projects such as the development of security tokens for Nomura Securities and developing the first real estate security token offering in Japan. Previously, he was a Senior Portfolio Manager at Nomura Asset Management and has been with the Nomura Group since 2007.  He has a PhD in Theoretical Physics from Kyoto University. 

Chris Fleming is Laser Digital’s Chief Client Officer and joined the company from Nomura, where he was Vice Chairman of Wholesale EMEA, prior to which he was the Head of Global Markets EMEA Sales.  Chris began his career in finance in gilt sales and has held several senior roles in bond and interest rate sales at Barclays, RBS and UBS. Chris has a Master’s Degree in Economics and Law from the University of Aberdeen. 

Steve Ashley is the Executive Chairman and Co-Founder of Laser Digital. He has over 35 years’ experience in the financial services sector, the last 13 of which have been with Nomura, where he served most recently as Senior Managing Director and Head of the Wholesale Division. As Head of Wholesale, Steve served on the Group Executive Management Board, overseeing the management of all sales and trading activities globally, as well as the financing and advisory business across investment banking.

Prior to Nomura, Steve held several senior trading and risk management roles at RBS and UBS. Steve has served on the board of the Global Financial Markets Association and the UK Fixed Income Currencies and Commodities Markets Standards Board.

Olivier Dang leads Ventures at Laser Digital. His expertise includes investments in early-stage Web3 companies that are focused on responsible innovation and technology that meets the challenges of institutional digital asset adoption.

Prior to Laser, Olivier spent over a decade at Nomura, latterly as Global COO of Wholesale Digital Office. He also serves on the board of Laser Digital and various portfolio companies of Laser Ventures.

Olivier holds an MBA from London Business School and graduated from the Ecole D’Ingénieurs du Numérique (ISEP) and Chalmers University with a Masters in Telecommunication.

Cameron Dickie joined Laser Digital in March 2023 as Head of Distribution of the trading division. He has worked in digital assets for the past six years, first as Head of Broking at digital prime broker Bequant and then as Head of EMEA Sales at B2C2, a leading crypto liquidity provider.

Cameron started his career in finance as a stockbroker in The City of London and he graduated from the University of Bristol.

Romain has over 20 years of experience in the financial markets sector and joined Laser Digital in April 2023 as Chief Risk Officer. Prior to joining Laser Digital, Romain was the Global Head of Risk at Flow Traders, where he managed a global team of 25 risk managers across investment, market, counterparty credit, and operational risks in Equities, FX, Fixed Income and Digital Assets. Previously, he has held several senior Risk Management positions at top tier banks including HSBC, Citi, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley.

Romain holds an M.Sc. in Decision Sciences from the London School of Economics, an M.Phil. in Operational Research from University Paris IX-Dauphine & Ecole des Mines Paris and a B.Sc. in Economic and Financial Engineering from University of Montpellier.

Sebastien Guglietta is the Head of Asset Management at Laser Digital. His domain of expertise is in crypto assets and blockchain-based protocols, systematic macro trading strategies, derivatives arbitrages, and artificial intelligence. From 2021, Sebastian was Nomura’s Chief Scientist Officer, prior to which he was a Portfolio Manager and Senior Scientist at Brevan Howard.

 

Sebastian has a M.Sc. from ESSEC Business School, an M.Phil. in Mathematical Economics and Econometrics from the EHESS, along with a B.Sc. and M.Phil. in Pure Mathematics.

Craig Howell joined Laser Digital in 2023, having spent the past fourteen years at Nomura,  latterly in the Tokyo Head Office as the Global Head of Group MI – Financial Planning and Strategy and before that he held various Finance roles, based in Tokyo and Hong Kong.

Prior to Nomura, Craig was at Lehman Brothers and he began his career at PwC.

A Chartered Financial Analyst and Chartered Accountant, Craig graduated from the University of Cape Town with a Bachelor’s of Business Science and a Bachelor of Commerce in Financial Management.

Wassil is the CISO of Laser Digital. Prior to this, Wassil was at Citi for 18 years in various IT and Information Security roles, latterly as Head of Cybersecurity Services, EMEA  and Global head of Data Security. He is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional and graduated with a Master’s in IT and Computer Science Engineering from Télécom SudParis. He also has a joint MBA from LSE, NYU Stern, and HEC (Trium program).

Fiona is Head of Distribution for Laser Digital Asset Management and has worked within digital asset management for the last two and half years, previously as Head of Distribution for Nickel Digital Asset Management, marketing a range of alpha and beta crypto funds.

Prior to working in digital,  Fiona was at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, responsible for their UCITS alternative platform and she was also a director at Rothschild Asset Management, as global head of their alternative UCITS platform.

James Lancaster is the COO of Laser Digital, prior to which he spent over a decade at Nomura, latterly as Global Wholesale COO.

 James has over 20 years’ experience of developing and managing business operations, he joined Nomura in Tokyo in 2010 as COO, Global Rates and Fixed Income Japan, and later worked in Singapore before relocating to London.

 Before Nomura, James worked at RBS in London and New York where he held several roles within Finance and Flow Rates Trading. He became the COO for Global Rates in 2006.

 James has served on the board of the Association for Financial Markets in Europe.

Chris Old is the CAO of Laser Digital with oversight of Operations, Business Management and Corporate Communications. Previously he was at Nomura for 13 years, latterly as the CAO for Nomura’s wholesale digital office, covering strategy, transformation, financial management and operational risk management across FX and fixed income e-trading platforms.

Chris graduated from Loughborough University with a Bachelor’s degree in Electronic and Electrical Engineering.

Gino Wirthensohn is Laser Digital’s Chief Legal and Compliance Officer. He joined the company in February 2023 from Sygnum Bank, the world’s first regulated digital asset bank.  At Sygnum, Gino was Chief Legal, Compliance and RegTech Officer. Before joining Sygnum, Gino co-founded an award-winning RegTech/FinTech start-up. Prior to working in the start-up space, he held positions in legal, compliance, and risk management in the banking and audit/consulting industries, and has worked previously in public notary services.

Gino holds a Master of Law from the University of Lucerne and an Executive MBA from the University of Oxford.

Paul Murphy is Chief People Officer and joined Laser Digital from Royal Bank of Canada where he spent nearly 20 years in senior roles across human resources and recruitment, latterly in Global Talent and previously as Head of Recruitment for Europe and Asia Pacific.

Paul started his career at JP Morgan and graduated from the University of Essex with a BSc in Economics.

Hideaki Kudo is a Representative Director and is the head of the Laser’s Japan office. Prior to his appointment at Laser in October 2023, Kudo was an Executive Director in the Digital Asset Strategy Department of Nomura’s Digital Company, responsible for its overall project management, including projects such as the development of security tokens for Nomura Securities and developing the first real estate security token offering in Japan. Previously, he was a Senior Portfolio Manager at Nomura Asset Management and has been with the Nomura Group since 2007.  He has a PhD in Theoretical Physics from Kyoto University. 

Chris Fleming is Laser Digital’s Chief Client Officer and joined the company from Nomura, where he was Vice Chairman of Wholesale EMEA, prior to which he was the Head of Global Markets EMEA Sales.  Chris began his career in finance in gilt sales and has held several senior roles in bond and interest rate sales at Barclays, RBS and UBS. Chris has a Master’s Degree in Economics and Law from the University of Aberdeen.