In 2020 we hired Ciaran to fulfill the role of US Development Manager, at the time our presence in the US was growing, and we knew it was time to hire a representative in the US to take care of our US clients. This led to us acquiring an address on Wall Street.
Tell us a bit about yourself Ciaran.
I grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland and went to college there to study Software Engineering. After a short stint at a development shop there, I joined Wombat Financial Software which was the start of a lifelong career focused around working with some of the most interesting and cool technology for Wall Street.
In 2004, with Wombat, I took a business trip to New York, which was supposed to be for 2 weeks. 17 years later I’m still here, and while I’ve held many different roles during that time with start-ups, a large technology vendor and a stock exchange, my passion still lies with getting around a whiteboard with some innovative technology and showing people how they can use it.
When did you first hear about Blackcore?
I was browsing the vendor list for one of the upcoming US Trade Shows when I saw the Blackcore logo… It’s not often new vendors pop up at these events, so I was intrigued. I reached out to Nick Rogers CEO at The Exacta Technologies Group, a few days later we had a zoom call and after about 10 minutes it was clear we both thought the same way about technology, the market and more importantly how doing what’s right for the customer is how you build a business. The rest is history!
Tell us about your role as US Development Manager
Selling technology for trading has changed in the last 15 years. It used to be about how many widgets you could sell. The widgets would do a certain thing, people would buy them and that was that. Selling was about which steak house you brought your clients too. Now selling technology is about understanding what the client needs and how your product can help them. But it doesn’t stop there, there is a constant feedback loop into how to improve, what to build next; discussions around what other problems a product can solve. As US Development Manager, I don’t see myself as a sales guy selling widgets, I’m out here representing Blackcore and the company values. Constantly working on solving real problems for real clients. I think that I spend more time talking about technology than selling!
What do you enjoy most about your work at Blackcore?
Given the parent company (Exacta Technologies) has been around for 20 years there’s an agility here that you don’t see very often. It’s great to work with a company where the mindset is “how do we do it?” as opposed to “computer says no!”. Honestly, I think that’s the same reason why clients choose Blackcore – we are easy to deal with, honest, fair and listen to feedback. Of course, the other thing I really like is the ability to work with some of the top electronic trading firms globally – it's nice to keep a finger on the pulse of what is going on there.
How do you see Blackcore evolving in the ever-changing, innovative world of Financial Technology?
I’d suggest we don’t change. The technology will change & mature and there will always be the next generation of what is cool to work with clients on. We will remain focused on delivering quality products to clients, not selling vapourware, being the vendor that does right by its clients. That’s what is going to set technology companies apart from their competition in the next 10 years. There’s plenty of vendors out there trying to sell widgets – Blackcore solves problems!
Ready to learn more about Blackcore?
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