Allan Lane, PhD, Founding Partner

Allan is both a founding partner of Algo-Chain and Twenty20 Investments. Prior to this Allan spearheaded BlackRock’s iShares’ investment research initiative in Europe, working with a number of clients in the portfolio solutions space. Previously he headed up the ETF Product R&D team.

Before joining iShares in 2008, Allan had previously spent 3 years within the Active Fixed Income business at Barclays Global Investors, where he was responsible for building out the investment platform, focusing on a range of trading strategies in the rates and credit arena. Allan has also held a number of senior roles in the investment banking industry, including a period at RBS where he was The Global Head of Quantitative Research, responsible for the models used to value the structured notes product range used by the bank’s equity, rates, credit and fx business lines. In his rookie years in the early 1990s, he learnt the craft of stochastic calculus as a derivatives specialist at Banque Paribas, before being recruited to head up JP Morgan’s Equity Derivatives Models team.

Allan studied Mathematics at Oxford University and Cambridge University before subsequently gaining his PhD in Theoretical Physics at The University of Washington in the US. With his close ties to The Pacific Northwest in the USA, Allan has served on the Board of Regents at the Honors College at Oregon State University, where he is now an Emeritus Member

Irene Bauer, PhD, Founding Partner

Irene is a founding partner of both Algo-Chain Twenty20 Investments and is a leading specialist in innovative portfolio construction models which control target risk while optimising the portfolio's returns. Previously, Irene has been at iShares, BlackRock, providing portfolio solutions for their Client Group, along with insights gained from a rigorous ETF investment research process. Prior to that, Irene gained experience across all aspects of ETFs while designing and researching new ETF products at iShares, covering the fixed income, equities, commodities & alternatives asset classes.

In her time at Barclays Global Investors Irene worked within the asset allocation team in the Active Fixed Income business, where she applied her expertise to the scientific investment approach of BGI. Her career in the financial services industry started at ABN Amro where she was responsible for the modelling of structured products, specializing in mortgage backed securities.

Irene has a degree in mathematics from the University of Augsburg, Germany, completing her doctorate thesis in numerical mathematics at the University of Heidelberg. After obtaining her PhD, Irene spent a number of years focusing on the commercial development of statistical models and optimisation tools.

Laurie Jaques, Fund Sales Distribution

Laurie is one of those rare individuals in the Fund Management industry whose expertise truly extends across Asset Management, Institutional and Retail Platforms, Securities, Sales Management, ETFs, and Pension Funds. With a career in excess of 30 years, Laurie has been participating in the platform revolution from the very start and right up until the present day bringing a wealth of experience that is mission critical as Algo-Chain looks to successfully navigate the FinTech landscape over the next 5 years.

Joining Baring Asset Management in the 1980s, Laurie went on to become a Director in Third-Party Sales and subsequently played significant roles at a number of the Europe’s top platform providers. These include Director of Sales at Cofunds, Head of Structured Product Sales at Skandia & Head of Sales Development UK & Ireland at Allfunds.

In addition, Laurie oversaw Sales for Henderson Global Investors’ UK Wholesale business, which combined with his experience from FNZ, Embark Group, Tavira Securities and Fundment makes his contribution to the advisory board invaluable.

Nick Jordan, Fund Sales Distribution

Nick is an experienced and successful Director in the Investment Management Industry, a career spanning over 35 years. During his extensive, and varied, career Nick has developed a wide range of client relationships amongst the Wealth Management community within the UK and Ireland.

Having had a successful career in the Building Society environment, reaching a senior management level, Nick moved to County Unit Trusts for two years to develop this ‘greenfield’ opportunity. After County, Nick spent 19 years with Barings being appointed as Director, and Deputy Head of the UK based Mutual Fund Sales Team covering equity ,fixed income and hedge fund strategies across multiple geographies and disciplines.

Moving then as a Director to Resolution Asset management (helping manage the transition to Ignis Asset management) Nick spent nearly nine years developing the multi geography,multi discipline, boutique and inhouse, funds, including hedge funds and an innovative, complex, fixed income fund, before moving latterly to Saracen Fund Managers. At Saracen, Nick was a Director responsible for sales, marketing and increasing Saracen’s footprint across the UK. Upon subsequently establishing his eponymous consultancy, a deep, and enthusiastic commitment with Algo-chain has developed.

James Shanks, Capital Markets

James Shanks is a markets advisor to Algo-Chain providing expertise on trading ETFs, single stocks & futures.

With over twenty-five years’ experience in Capital Markets, James brings a wealth of experience from the institutional equities trading arena and a deep understanding of trading and ETF execution.

Recently James has set up Mandria, a Wealth Manager offering investment solutions to the intermediary space, and oversees the ETF brokerage division at Tavira Securities - a global financial services firm offering brokerage, asset management and wealth management services.

A career that includes working for some of the biggest names in the financial services industry including Schröders Italia, HSBC, ADIA and Sanford Bernstein, James brings a broad understanding of the different needs across different client segments. This includes the private client space that Bernstein coveted, the high standards that comes with the competitive world of the Sovereign Wealth Fund ADIA and from the vantage point of Milan, Italy, working at Schröders, an excellent understanding of Europe's Wealth Management industry.

Mike Kleyn, PhD, Senior Data Scientist

Michael Kleyn is a Data Scientist for Algo-Chain, providing expertise in the processing, manipulation, and analysis of quantitative data for driving and managing investment portfolios.

With over twenty years’ experience in Capital Markets, he brings know-how across several asset classes for the design of algorithms associated with systematic investment.

His career in finance began in Bank Treasury - measuring and monitoring counterparty credit exposure (RBS/AbnAmro). As the industry evolved to become more and more reliant on data and analytics for portfolio management, he moved to research and development of systematic investing on the buy side for large Asset Managers - in Corporate Credit & Credit Derivatives (Barclays, BlackRock) - and in Sovereign Bonds and Global Equities (Schroders).

Mike studied Engineering and Computing at Imperial College and completed a Ph.D. in Computing Science (Graph Languages) at the University of Texas at Austin.

Bartek Fraszczyk, ETF Strategist

Bart is a dedicated ETF professional, providing expertise in fund due diligence, portfolio research and construction. He brings 20 years of experience in asset management and servicing across different asset classes including alternatives.

Prior to joining Algo-Chain, Bart oversaw valuations at Sciens Capital Management and was a Vice President within BNY Mellon’s Asset Servicing division.

His expertise in ETF’s was developed while working as a Multi-Asset ETF Portfolio Manager for Generation Asset Management, having previously developed a multi-asset ETF trend following strategy for Canada’s largest managed account distribution platform run by Arrow Capital. As a Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, Bart also brings his business acumen to the fund management industry based on his time at Commerzbank Group focusing on processes optimization and streamlining.

Bart holds a master’s in econometrics from the University of Lodz which lead to his first role as a lecturer at the Academy of Management in Lodz specialising in econometrics, statistics and other quantitative sciences. On the personal development level enjoys exploring photography, social media, reading books, long-distance walking and running.