Sydney fintech sheds high profile CEO

Less than three months after the formal launch of Sydney-based financial big data specialist RoZetta Technology, the company has lost its high profile chief executive, Ian Oppermann, and had its wings clipped.

Oppermann, a former head of CSIRO's ICT flagship, was RoZetta's first CEO. RoZetta is a commercial offshoot of Sirca, a not for profit big data organisation owned by 40 Australian and New Zealand universities.

When RoZetta was formally launched in February, Oppermann said his mandate was to use Sirca's big data smarts and a team of 85 specialist staff to build products for the global financial market.

RoZetta's systems can process, analyse and graph every trade from every share market in the world in two and a half hours. It has been selling insights from that analysis to a range of financial service providers, including Thomson Reuters and Dow Jones.

Oppermann's vision was to expand RoZetta's reach by creating innovative products for the financial sector including a big data platform called Hercules and an analytic system called Athena to report, monitor, visualise and detect trends.

However, a dispute between Oppermann and Sirca's board over the direction that RoZetta should take saw Oppermann leave the company earlier this month.
 
It now appears that RoZetta will return to being run as a Sirca subsidiary rather than a standalone commercial business.

In what will prove a remarkable test of co-operation, the organisation's chief technology officer, Chris Mendes, chief operating officer, Satish Nair, and chief business development officer, Richard Atkinson, will share the role of RoZetta CEO while the dust settles and Sirca's board decides whether the organisation actually needs a full time CEO.

Oppermann did not return calls yesterday but according to his LinkedIn profile he has taken on the role as head of digital innovation and enterprise for the WA based International Skills and Training Institute in Health.