As More Financial Institutions and Fintechs Adopt Open Source Technology to Improve Business Outcomes, Foundation Relies on Leading Voices from Many Industries and Thriving Community
New York, NY -- February 25, 2021 -- The Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS), today announced another expansion of its leadership with three new board directors representing FINOS gold members. They are Capital One’s John Mark Walker, the director of the open source program office, Randy Goldsmith, managing director of technology at Tradeweb and Wipro’s Andrew Aitken, who is that company’s global open source practice lead. The leadership appointments further FINOS’ intellectual capital and also showcase the various industries, from consulting to fintech to capital markets, that are powering the open source movement in financial services.
“As FINOS grows, we continue to add skilled leaders who put collaboration first whether it's with respect to open source development, digital transformation or working to solve problems with industry peers,” said Gabriele Columbro, executive director of FINOS. “Our foundation enables open source adoption in financial services and it’s through a community of strong voices and shared vision that we are able to achieve positive outcomes for the industry.”
New FINOS Gold Board Members from Capital One, Tradeweb and Wipro Emphasize Open Source Collaboration
FINOS’ board consists of three tiers of membership - Platinum, Gold, Silver - each with representation from members in each group. The gold group comprises financial institutions, technology and open source companies, consultancies and fintechs and it plays an essential role in direction of the foundation.
Capital One’s John Mark Walker is a long-time open source product, community and ecosystem expert, and has built numerous enterprise software communities, launched new product initiatives, and implemented collaborative processes with internal as well as external stakeholders. His goal is to enable gold members to readily participate in the open source ecosystem, collaboratively, and bring awareness to the financial services industry that open source collaboration can reduce risk and increase the quality of code produced. Walker also published an eBook on collaboration with the Linux Foundation, which discusses how to optimize open source usage and collaboration for your business.
“FINOS has put the financial services industry on a path to greater open source adoption,” said Walker. “In this leadership role, I hope to use my unique experience, both from a vendor and an end user perspective, to unlock more open source collaboration within the industry.”
Capital One has recently worked closely with FINOS to launch the InnerSource Special Interest Group (SIG). The group works to establish best practices for the application of open source software development practices to internal software development projects. It's an important way for companies to increase collaboration within their organization, and for developers to gain skills that will make them effective participants in open source projects.
Randy Goldsmith from Tradeweb also joined FINOS’ board. Prior to joining TradeWeb in 2015, he spent more than 10 years at J.P. Morgan’s investment bank where he held various roles within technology before assuming responsibility for Rates E-Commerce Product Management. Goldsmith will focus on identifying new opportunities where open source can be used to solve common business challenges within financial services.
“Open source technology has become highly sought after by companies that are looking for new ways to increase efficiency throughout their business processes, and I’m excited to work alongside member firms to identify opportunities to leverage open source,” said Goldsmith. “I believe in discovering collaborative ways to solve common technology challenges that will benefit the entire industry, and look forward to applying my observations with FINOS.”
Wipro’s Andrew Aitken, a leader in the open source community, brings over 20 years of open source technology experience and is a recognized expert on strategies for the creation of economic value from Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). He also founded the only "think tank" on the future of open source, a bi-annual event held in Napa, CA and Paris, France, and regularly attended by leading CEOs and visionaries.
“FINOS offers a unique opportunity to enable collaboration in a broad fintech ecosystem around open source software development methods, code contributions and governance. It’s my goal to help provide a way for all members to implement open source strategies in a collaborative manner and for the gold members to participate and contribute their knowledge to the best of their ability.”, said Aitken.
“Our new board appointments bring strong leadership from our gold member ranks as we continue to build the foundation’s membership. Each will provide a valuable voice to our community and board matters,” added Tosha Ellison, COO of FINOS.
About FINOS
FINOS (The Fintech Open Source Foundation) is a nonprofit whose mission is to foster adoption of open source, open standards and collaborative software development practices in financial services. It is the center for open source developers and the financial services industry to build new technology projects that have a lasting impact on business operations. As a regulatory compliant platform, the foundation enables developers from these competing organizations to collaborate on projects with a strong propensity for mutualization. It has enabled codebase contributions from both the buy- and sell-side firms and counts 37 major financial institutions, fintechs and technology consultancies as part of its membership. FINOS is also part of the Linux Foundation, the largest shared technology organization in the world.
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Jamie Kemp
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