Two Finovate alums — Curinos and Finastra — are introducing new CEOs this week.
Data, technology, and insights provider for financial institutions Curinos has appointed Jeff Hack as CEO.
Financial services software application provider Finastra announced that Chris Walters will replace Simon Paris as CEO.
The new year is bringing new leadership to a pair of Finovate alums: Curinos and Finastra. Both firms introduced new Chief Executive Officers to start 2025.
Curinos, which made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2023, has appointed Jeff Hack as CEO and member of the company’s Board of Directors. Hack succeeds Craig Woodward, who has led Curinos since 2021. Hack was most recently CEO of software and integrated payments provider Paya and, before that, was Executive Vice President and a member of the Management Committee at First Data (now Fiserv).
“I am excited to be joining the talented team at Curinos,” Hack said in a statement. “Curinos offers market-leading solutions and world-class support to help drive the growth of our financial institution clients. We will build on our strong market position with further investments in technology and talent to provide even more value to our clients.”
Headquartered in New York, Curinos provides data, technologies, and insights to enable financial institutions to make better, faster, and more profitable, data-driven decisions. The company was formed in 2021 via the combination of Novantas and Informa’s FBX business. Today, Curinos is the chosen provider for more than 800 credit union and community banks across the U.S., 42 of the top 50 mortgage lenders, as well as Canada’s “Big Six” banks.
Hack takes the helm at Curinos in the wake of a year in which the company has partnered with Bankrate, earned a spot on the 2024 IDC FinTech Rankings, and entered into an agreement with Databricks Marketplace to make a subset of its data assets on deposits and lending rates available to Databricks Marketplace customers. Also in 2024, Curinos announced a collaboration with fellow Finovate alum FIS and introduced a new AI-powered creative management workflow capability for its Amplero Personalization Optimizer solution.
Financial services software applications provider Finastra has appointed Chris Walters as its new Chief Executive Officer. Walters will replace Simon Paris, who has served as Finastra CEO since 2018, a year after the company was formed.
“I’m excited to join Finastra at this pivotal moment in its journey and am impressed by the significant progress that has been made during Simon’s leadership,” Walters said. “I look forward to working with the talented team to drive sustainable growth and continue to deliver more value to our customers, team members, and investors.”
Finastra was formed via a merger between D+H and Finovate alum Misys in 2017. Walters comes to the company after serving as CEO of technology workforce development company Pluralsight and previously as CEO of Avantax (formerly Blucora Inc.), a tax-focused wealth management solution provider for financial professionals.
Walters has also served in leadership roles including Partner at McKinsey & Company and COO of Bloomberg Industry Verticals Group.
Serving more than 8,000 financial institutions — including 45 of the world’s top 50 banks — Finastra provides financial services software applications across capital markets, lending, payments, universal banking (including retail and digital), as well as treasury. A leader in Open Finance, Finastra has partnered in recent months with DXC Luxoft and RightClick to enhance delivery of managed services, with Vietnam’s Joint Stock Commercial bank (LPBank) to modernize treasury management operations, and with Sonali Bangladesh UK (SBUK) to provide digital banking — including enhanced Shariah-compliant services.
Photo by Anna Tarazevich
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