While attracting senior talent is a common challenge for up-and-coming startups, one Toronto-based company has managed to break through this obstacle.
On Thursday, FutureVault, a cloud-based platform that allows users to digitally store and manage important financial and legal documents, announced four senior hires — which included a few banking veterans.
Kevin Whyte, who has held the positions of COO and senior vice-president of wealth operations and technology at TD Bank, will be joining as FutureVault’s president and COO. Richard Adair, who was formerly the CEO of Symbility Health, has joined the company as vice chair, where he will manage a portfolio of key mandates. Tom Duane, formerly the senior technology executive for TD Bank, is joining as the chief technology officer; and Rudy Sankovic, formerly the senior vice president of investor relations for TD Bank Group, has been appointed as CFO. Together, FutureVault’s team is made up of 28 people.
“After our successful launch in September, we confirmed what we already knew — that there is a tremendous need for a product like FutureVault.”
– G. Scott Paterson
“After our successful launch in September, we confirmed what we already knew: that there is a tremendous need for a product like FutureVault,” said G. Scott Paterson, the chairman and CEO of FutureVault. “Our aim post-launch was to build a seasoned management team that could take us out of launch mode and into aggressive growth mode. We believe this is the team to do just that.”
Paterson says that while attracting senior talent can be challenging, the new hires were attracted to FutureVault for a number of reasons, including its tech platform and existing leadership. Financial institution execs joining FinTech startups — or launching FinTech startups — seems to be a growing trend as they become attracted to the nimble nature of startups.
“There was an attraction to working within a fast-paced technology startup focused on solving a suite of major challenges faced by financial institutions,” said Paterson. He added that the new hires will bring strong expertise to FutureVault’s team.
“Our management team has a unified vision for the growth of FutureVault,” said Paterson. He listed growing and scaling FutureVault into a major global organization, building industry relationships, using the new team’s industry experience in building and buying top FinTech software, and implementing a growth strategy beyond financial services as part of the team’s vision.