Axoni, a New York-based blockchain startup, has announced the appointment of former Citadel Technology executive as its Chief Operating Officer.

Thomas Chippas has joined Axoni’s executive team to help drive the firm’s continued growth. He will refine Axoni’s product and service capabilities, scale the organization, and broaden ongoing client and commercial engagements.

“The world’s leading financial institutions are embracing distributed ledger technology to reduce costs and unlock new opportunities to interact with their clients and counterparties,” said Axoni CEO, Greg Schvey, “Axoni has proven itself in multiple proofs of concept, creating substantial interest in our capabilities. Tom brings a broad skill set and industry expertise to supplement that momentum. We are thrilled to have him join the executive team.”

Chippas will bring his extensive experience in financial services industry to Axoni. Until January 2016, he served as Chief Executive Officer of Citadel Technology. Previous to his role at Citadel Technology, he was both Managing Director as well as Global Head of Quantitative Prime Services for Barclays.

Before his stint at Barclays, Chippas was Managing Director of Autobahn Equity North America, Deutsche Bank’s Electronic Trading Service, and held the same role as Principal at Bank of America. As a vendor to the financial services community, Chippas served as Global Head of Sales and Account Management for Boston based OMS vendor Macgregor and as Head of European and US Sales and Marketing at FTI, the predecessor of GoldenSource.

“I am elated to join Axoni and help grow the organization at this most exciting time. As distributed ledger technology moves to production, Axoni’s proven technology and world-class team are truly unique in delivering results,” stated Chippas. “I believe my background in scaling small fintech firms and running global trading businesses within top tier investment banks allows me to both see opportunities and understand the challenges our clients are trying to address. Distributed ledger technology will be truly transformative and Axoni stands out from the field in our ability to deliver.”

Axoni specializes in distributed ledger infrastructure and its product offerings include blockchain deployments, large-scale data management, bespoke smart contract development, analytics services, and connectivity tools.