Finastra CEO Syed Leaves for Vista

Finastra was created after private equity firm Vista Equity Partners bought Misys in 2012, later merging it with D+H, which it acquired in 2013.

Simon Paris, the current deputy CEO, will become the full chief executive, the company has announced. Syed, who has been the CEO of Misys since 2012, and later the expanded firm, will be leaving to become an operating principal at Vista, and will remain on Finastra’s board.

The appointment of Paris in the top spot is effective immediately, according to a Finastra spokesperson.

Paris has been deputy CEO since 2015, when he joined after an eight-year stint at SAP, holding a number of roles ranging from vice president of large accounts through to global head of banking. Latterly, he was the firm’s president of industry cloud.

Before SAP, he was a vice president in charge of EMEA global accounts for Infor Global Solutions, a partner at Netdecisions, and earlier in his career was a senior associate at consultancy McKinsey and Company.

Finastra, which was formed in 2017, has over 10,000 employees and operates in 130 countries. Its most recent disclosed financial data, released in 2017, puts revenues at around $2.1 billion.

This is the latest in a series of senior moves and appointments for the London-headquartered firm. In March 2018, it appointed ex-NCR CTO, Eli Rosner, as its new chief product and technology officer. Meanwhile, in May, it hired Calypso veteran Jim Fiesel to head up capital markets for the Americas.