S3 Partners has announced the appointment of industry veteran Bill Stephenson, who will join the firm’s New York office as managing director.
Stephenson will lead transaction cost analysis and execution initiatives at S3, including Blacklight Financing OMS, which helps trading professionals find the money in their financing relationships and fix their book.
Before joining S3, Stephenson was CEO of Plia, where he will continue as chairman, and spent 20 years at Franklin Templeton Investments as global head of trading.
While at Franklin, he ran market data services, the investment quantitative research group, and the global trading operation, which executed equities, foreign exchange, derivatives and securities lending transactions.
In correlation with Stephenson’s new role, S3 will assume a majority stake in AIR Summit (AIR), a community focused on innovative technologies in the investment management process. AIR was founded by Stephenson in 2013.
Commenting on the appointment, Bob Sloan, managing partner of S3, says: "S3 has been an innovative force that brings together technology, data analytics and financial markets. The addition of Bill and AIR helps further our capabilities for our clients.
"S3 was one of the early presenters at the AIR Summit and an ongoing sponsor of its events and the mission. Our investment in the re-launch of the S3 AIR Summit from its pre-pandemic success will help our customers stay at the forefront of finding new alpha, avoiding risk and fixing costs in their investment processes."
Stephenson adds: "Over my career, I have focused on finding new ways to generate alpha. The AIR Summit was one avenue in that discovery process, and the other was through integration and experimentation with emerging technologies and ideas; some failed, and others were successful.
“I look forward to my new role at S3, which will allow me to explore the latest technologies for alpha generation and to build upon S3's data and technology within the quickly evolving securities finance space."
