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February 8, 2022 - The Board of Assure Hedge has announced that, at the request of the Founder Barry McCarthy, it has appointed Pritesh Ruparel as Chief Executive Officer. Pritesh, who has over a decade of experience running a global OTC derivates business, will assume responsibilities from Barry McCarthy, who will focus on growing the embedded finance business at Assure Hedge.
The appointment of Pritesh Ruparel coincides with a step-change in growth at Assure Hedge. Following completion of a successful funding round in the summer of last year, which allowed the company to grow its team as well as launch X Hedge, its flagship solutions for FX hedging, the company’s growth accelerated significantly. Income in H1 2021 grew at 627% compared to the prior year, while in H2 2021 income grew at over 1,057% compared to a year earlier.
Pritesh Ruparel brings extensive operational experience in the derivatives market, making him ideally-placed to lead the company through its next phase of growth. While at Sucden Financial, Pritesh built up and scaled a high-growth global OTC derivatives business, giving him deep knowledge from product, sales and trading through to compliance as well as experience of developing a highly scalable cutting-edge electronic architecture; skills that will be critical to scaling the Assure Hedge business over the coming years.
Barry McCarthy will focus on developing the company’s footprint in the embedded finance market, which represents the bulk of the addressable market for Assure Hedge. The Assure Hedge technology has been built API-first, allowing it to be embedded into other applications and, importantly, into other financial and non-financial distribution channels, such as online marketplaces. This embedded FX hedging market today constitutes a largely untapped market of more than $1 trillion in annual payment volumes.
Commenting on his appointment as CEO, Pritesh Ruparel said, “I am delighted to be taking on the CEO role. Assure Hedge has a fantastic value proposition and a huge market opportunity into which to expand. Over the past six months, our team has done a great job of demonstrating that an end-to-end technology solution for hedging is extremely attractive. Our goal is now to go much further and build a leading high growth company. I look forward to ensuring the team has everything it needs to scale, and that we can make an impact to society by bringing our solutions to a broader range of companies whose customers need hedging solutions. Barry and I have developed a great working relationship over the last six months, and I am confident that this change will allow us both to work together to our strengths, to make the biggest impact on the future of Assure Hedge.“
Assure Hedge Founder, Barry McCarthy added, “Pritesh is the ideal person to lead Assure Hedge through its next phase. I have worked alongside Pritesh for the last six months and known him for many more. His passion, energy, leadership skills and knowledge of the hedging domain are truly impressive. Transitioning out of the CEO role now allows me to focus on the embedded hedging opportunity. Still today, fewer than 30% of SMEs use hedging services and, of course, an even smaller proportion of individuals. As a result, millions of businesses and billions of people are exposed to trillions of dollars of risk to their financial wellbeing. By introducing hedging into new distribution channels – such as accountancy services, online marketplaces, and relocation services – we can meet this protection gap. We can bring hedging to everyone.”
Assure Hedge Chairman Richard Hayes said, “I have been extremely impressed by the traction that the company has gained over the last year. We have reached an inflection point with the strong growth achieved month on month over the past four months. This calls for different leadership skills and I am delighted that Pritesh has agreed to take on the role of CEO. His experience will be invaluable in helping us to scale our processes and operations. The move also enables Barry McCarthy to do what he does best, which is build new businesses, in this case the business around Open Hedge, our product for embedding hedging into financial and non-financial channels, which will significantly expand our addressable market and transform the business. I wish both ever success in their roles. It is really good news for the company.”
