Paul Straughen

CEO Elect

Paul’s career spans investment both banking and technology. Just prior to joining agora as CEO Elect (pending regulatory approvals) in February 2024, Paul was Principal and CEO at Altalix. Altalix was a FinTech that made early strides in blockchain technology, as a participant in the first cohort of the FCA Sandbox programme, testing conditional payments by combining fiat tokens on ETHEREUM and smart contracts. Altalix developed its business to offer integrated on/off-ramp solutions and was one of the first 25 firms to be registered by the FCA as a cryptoasset firm. Altalix was successfully exited in August 2023.

Alongside the above highlight, Paul's entrepreneurial background includes other FinTech and RegTech projects. In his earlier career, Paul held senior trading positions at UBS, Santander and BNP Paribas. At Santander, he established the GEMM and developed the institutional side of the business, leading the bank to become the first new entrant to lead a syndication.

Paul has a Masters in Engineering from Edinburgh University and a Masters in Law from the University of London.

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Meet the rest of the team

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Dermot Rice

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Adan Scotney

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Andy Fulwood

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Dimitris Eleftheriadis

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Dimitris joined agora in December 2020 as a Platform Engineer.

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Durand Dsouza

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Maria Hassam

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Jason Paterson

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Jason joined agora in May 2022 as a Software Engineer.

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Jules Gosnell

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Julita Lange

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Kirsten Landers

Head of Business Administration

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Sharan Sekhon

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Richard Boath

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Richard is a senior banker with 40 years of experience, most recently at Barclays from 2000 to 2016.

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Sir Peter Estlin

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