www.wealthandfinance-news.com Q3 2026 Featuring: &wealth finance i n t e r n a t i o n a l
AI Global Media, Ltd. (AI) takes reasonable measures to ensure the quality of the information on this web site. However, AI will not assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, correctness or completeness of any information that is available through this web site. If errors are brought to our attention, we will try to correct them. The information available through the website and our partner publications is for your general information and use and is not intended to address any particular finance or investment requirements. In particular, the information does not constitute any form of advice or recommendation by us or any of our partner publications and is not intended to be relied upon by users in making or refraining from making any investment or financial decisions. Appropriate independent advice should be obtained before making any such decision. Any arrangement made between you and any third party named in the site is at your sole risk and responsibility. Editor’s Letter Editorial Team Sofi Parry, Senior Editor | Joshua Beardsmore, Writer | Kita Thomas, Writer Design Team Emma Hunt, Creative Team Manager | Lauren Baldwin, Graphic Designer Welcome to the Q3 2026 edition Wealth & Finance International magazine. As always, we endeavour to provide fund managers, alongside institutional and private investors with the very latest industry news in the traditional and alternative investment spheres. We are delighted to showcase the incredible services of an innovative commercial fleet management consultancy, outstanding FinTech software development company, noteworthy fixed-income trading initiative, and the latest news in such a valuable sphere. Here’s to another excellent quarter ahead as we wish you all the best for a prosperous few months in the remainder of what has been a monumental year for growth. We look forward to bringing you more updates in our final edition of 2026. Sofi Parry, Senior Editor
Contents 4. News: - Woodsboro Bank Announces Appointment of Brian Ropp as Chief Financial Officer - Freightos Appoints Yaron Eldad as Chief Financial Officer 6. What the UK’s Bond Market Can Teach Global Fixed Income Investors 8. BFE Fleet Concepts GmbH: Commercial Fleet Management Consultancy of the Year 2026 – DACH 9. Investortools: Best Fixed-Income Trading Initiative 2026: Investortools Dealer Network 10. ScienceSoft: Best FinTech Software Development Company 2026 – USA
NEWS Woodsboro Bank Announces Appointment of Brian Ropp as Chief Financial Officer Experienced Community Banking Leader Joins Executive Team to Support Strategic Growth and Financial Strength Woodsboro Bank is pleased to announce the appointment of Brian Ropp as Chief Financial Officer. Bringing more than 30 years of experience in banking, capital markets, financial strategy, and executive leadership, Ropp will oversee the bank’s financial operations and help guide its long-term growth and strategic initiatives. Ropp will succeed current CFO, Patty Muldoon, who will transition into a Senior Advisor role with the bank. Ropp most recently served as Managing Director in the Financial Institutions Group at KBRA (Kroll Bond Rating Agency), where he helped lead the credit analysis of U.S. community banks ranging from $2 billion to $70 billion in assets. In that role, he oversaw ratings coverage for more than 150 financial institutions and provided forward-looking insights on industry trends and performance. Prior to KBRA, Ropp served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of a Maryland community bank, where he was responsible for financial strategy, capital planning, investor relations, and balance sheet management during a period of significant growth and organizational transformation. Earlier in his career, he spent approximately 15 years with T. Rowe Price as a Vice President and Credit Analyst specializing in U.S. financial institutions. “Brian’s depth of financial expertise, leadership experience, and understanding of community banking make him an exceptional addition to our executive team,” said Rich Ohnmacht, President and CEO of Woodsboro Bank. “His background working with community banks across the country, coupled with his leadership experience right here in Maryland, makes him uniquely positioned to help guide our future. As we continue to invest in our customers, communities, and long-term growth, we’re excited to welcome Brian to our team.” Ropp holds a Master of Business Administration with a concentration in Finance and Accounting from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting and Business & Finance from Mount Saint Mary’s University. He is also a Certified Public Accountant licensed in Maryland. In addition to his professional accomplishments, Ropp has a long history of civic leadership throughout Frederick County. He is a past president of the Rotary Club of Frederick, currently serves as Assistant Governor for Rotary District 7620, and is actively involved with several nonprofit and educational organizations in the region. “I’m truly honored to join Woodsboro Bank, where the commitment to community and exceptional customer service is at the core of everything we do,” said Ropp. “There is a strong legacy and culture at Woodsboro Bank that I am committed to preserving while helping advance the organization. I see tremendous opportunity ahead and look forward to leveraging my experience to further enhance the bank’s financial strength and support disciplined, sustained growth.” As Woodsboro Bank continues to grow and invest in the communities it serves, Ropp’s extensive banking and financial leadership experience will help support the bank’s mission of delivering personalized, relationshipfocused financial services while maintaining a strong foundation for future success.
NEWS Freightos Appoints Yaron Eldad as Chief Financial Officer Freightos Limited, the leading vendor-neutral global freight pricing, booking and procurement platform, announced the appointment of Yaron Eldad as Chief Financial Officer, effective September 1, 2026. Yaron will report to Chief Executive Officer Pablo Pinillos and join Freightos’ executive leadership team. Yaron Eldad brings more than 25 years of CFO and senior financial leadership experience across technology and life sciences, with particular experience in financial and operational management, business transformation, international growth and public-company finance. He has partnered closely with CEOs and Boards to balance growth investment with sustainable financial performance. Most recently, Eldad served as Chief Financial Officer of Evogene Ltd., where he led the finance organization across the group and its subsidiaries and oversaw multiple rounds of financing, M&A activity and significant organizational restructuring. Earlier, as CFO of technology company e-SIM, he helped scale the business internationally, led its IPO and its finance function throughout its years as a Nasdaq-listed company. He also co-founded Yamba Group, gaining first-hand experience building and scaling an international business. “We’re pleased to welcome Yaron to Freightos as our Chief Financial Officer,” said Pablo Pinillos, CEO of Freightos. “Yaron brings extensive public-company financial leadership experience, together with strong operational discipline and strategic business judgement. His appointment strengthens our leadership as we continue to focus on execution, profitability, and scalable growth. I look forward to working closely with him as we execute on Freightos’ strategy.” “Freightos has built a unique position at the intersection of technology, data, and global freight, in an industry with significant opportunity for continued digitalization,” said Yaron Eldad. “I am excited to join Pablo and the Freightos team and look forward to helping translate that opportunity into sustainable financial performance, while supporting the investments and operational excellence needed to scale the business over time.”
Feature What the UK’s Bond Market Can Teach Global Fixed Income Investors By Nigel Jenkins, Managing Director, Payden & Rygel As developed economies grapple with higher debt burdens and elevated interest rates, the UK’s gilt market offers important lessons for investors evaluating sovereign bonds around the world. Highlights • The UK’s gilt market offers important lessons for investors evaluating sovereign bonds worldwide. • Rising debt, higher real yields and persistent deficits are challenges shared by the UK, U.S. and other developed markets. • Long-term sovereign bond performance will depend on economic growth, policy credibility and investor confidence—not debt levels alone. • Active management and global diversification can help investors identify opportunities in a higher-rate environment. While the UK faces unique fiscal challenges, many of the same questions confronting gilt investors—higher debt burdens, elevated real yields and the need for stronger economic growth—are equally relevant to U.S. Treasuries and other developed sovereign bond markets. For much of the past decade, government bonds were viewed as the safest corner of global financial markets. Today, investors face a very different landscape. Higher interest rates, rising government debt and persistent fiscal deficits have prompted renewed questions about the long-term outlook for sovereign bond markets—not only in the United Kingdom, but across the developed world. The UK’s gilt market provides an especially useful case study. It is one of the world’s deepest government bond markets and often serves as an early indicator of broader trends affecting developed-market fixed income. While headlines frequently portray the UK as uniquely vulnerable, the reality is more nuanced. Rather than signaling an impending crisis, today’s gilt market illustrates both the challenges and opportunities facing investors as governments adjust to a world of structurally higher borrowing costs. Back in 2010, shortly after the Global Financial Crisis, legendary bond manager Bill Gross famously described the UK government bond market as “resting on a bed of nitroglycerine.” Sixteen years later, that prediction has clearly not materialized. The UK has weathered multiple governments, significant political upheaval, Brexit, the pandemic and the 2022 gilt market crisis while continuing to finance itself successfully in global capital markets. That history suggests investors should look beyond dramatic headlines and instead focus on the fundamental drivers of sovereign debt sustainability. Although the UK’s fiscal position deserves close attention, it is hardly unique. Across developed markets including the United States, Japan and much of Europe— government debt has increased substantially since the Global Financial Crisis while borrowing costs have risen sharply from the exceptionally low levels that prevailed for more than a decade. The question facing investors is therefore not whether one country carries debt, but which governments possess the economic strength, institutional credibility and policy flexibility to manage it over time. Three Factors Investors Should Watch Rather than focusing on debt levels alone, investors should pay attention to three broader forces shaping sovereign bond markets. Economic growth. Without stronger long-term growth, rising debt becomes increasingly difficult to stabilize, particularly when real interest rates exceed an economy’s underlying growth rate. Global capital flows. Governments increasingly compete for investment from global investors. Confidence, liquidity and policy credibility matter as much as fiscal statistics. Policy consistency. Markets generally tolerate high debt levels when investors believe policymakers remain committed to sustainable fiscal management and price stability. The UK’s experience ultimately offers a valuable reminder for global investors. Government bond markets should not be judged solely by debt ratios or political headlines. Long-term returns will depend on the interaction between growth, inflation, monetary policy and investor confidence. For active fixed income investors, periods of market uncertainty often create opportunities rather than reasons to retreat. As sovereign bond markets continue to adjust to a higherrate environment, careful security selection and global diversification are likely to become increasingly important. The UK’s gilt market may not provide all the answers, but it offers an important window into the forces reshaping government bond investing worldwide.
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8 | Wealth & Finance Q1 2024 Commercial Fleet Management Consultancy of the Year 2026 – DACH Since its inception in 2009, BFE Fleet Concepts has stood as a leading fleet management company for medium-sized companies with a fleet size of up to 500 vehicles. The consulting company specialises in fleet consulting and management, delivering services and support rooted in its foundational core values of trust, understanding, and innovation. BFE Fleet Concepts is steered by the expertise of Owner and Managing Director Jörn Kater. Jörn earned a Diplom-Kaufmann from the Helmut-Schmidt-Universität and is a, Advanced Negotiator, a Certified Fleet Manager, and a Certified Purchasing Manager. He is widely recognised across the industry as an expert in fleet management and lease return valuations. Under Jörn’s expert guidance, BFE Fleet Concepts’ work differs significantly from other commercially available mobility concepts for commercial company vehicles on the leasing market. The company’s main priority is to provide neutral, individual advice on all aspects of a company’s fleet, with close attention paid to the client’s operating costs. This support is delivered independent of car manufacturers and leasing companies, ensuring that the client is given the best selection of contractual partners. As experts in fleet management, any client engagement with BFE Fleet Concepts typically starts with a comprehensive fleet analysis. This provides the team with a personal overview of the client’s company, whilst the break-even analysis determines the cost-optimal service life, suitable equipment, and best engine for each individual fleet. This analysis is delivered completely free of charge to the client, as it is crucial in enabling BFE Fleet Concepts to identify targeted optimisation processes and offer an individualised fleet. Following the free initial analysis, the team will clarify with the client all points that are essential for their individual fleet. From this, BFE Fleet Concepts develops an optimal vehicle fleet concept for the client, containing a comprehensive overall plan that is ready for implementation. The client is offered various ways of continuing this project with BFE Fleet Concepts as a future partner: to implement the developed concept themselves, or to rely on the professional help of the BFE Fleet Concepts team and its exceptional fleet management capabilities. Through the implementation phase, BFE Fleet Concepts provides each client with the best possible comprehensive fleet management support. The company works alongside the client to implement the previously developed plan, putting itself at the client’s disposal for either a predefined period of time or permanently as a competent contact. It serves as an outsourced partner for all fleet management needs, ensuring that the client can optimise their fleet to their exact specificities. For almost two decades, BFE Fleet Concepts has dedicated itself to helping countless clients conserve their resources and secure the successful long-term future of their companies through exceptional fleet management solutions. The company attaches great detail to ensuring that every fleet fits the client’s personal branding and integrates seamlessly into their processes and structures, guaranteeing that every fleet management engagement ends in success. For its significant contributions to the landscape of commercial vehicle leasing, empowering countless clients and their companies through its expert commercial fleet management solutions, BFE Fleet Concepts has been rightfully recognised as the DACH region’s Commercial Fleet Management Consultancy of the Year 2026. We at Wealth and Finance International Magazine would like to extend our greatest congratulations to the entire team at BFE Fleet Concepts, and wish the company best of luck as it continues to reshape the future landscape of commercial fleet management. Contact: Jörn Kater Company: BFE Fleet Concepts GmbH Web Address: www.bfe-fleet.de In today’s increasingly competitive landscape, many businessowners have learned that managing a fleet is no longer a simple job to be done on the side. As the demands on mobility and efficiency continue to rise, commercial fleet management has become a much more centralised and integrated process for companies around the world. Enter BFE Fleet Concepts, a front-running commercial fleet management company offering complex solutions and expert advice targeting the development and optimisation of its clients’ fleets. We explored these services in further detail below, as BFE Fleet Concepts is named in the Management Consulting Awards 2026.
May26097 Best Fixed-Income Trading Initiative 2026: Investortools Dealer Network Investortools is a leading SaaS provider for fixed-income solutions, offering a suite of products, including the Investortools Dealer Network (IDN). The IDN is revolutionizing fixed-income trading by helping clients optimize portfolios and maximize trading performance through unprecedented connectivity and deep integration of market data. The Investortools Dealer Network (IDN) began, like many good ideas, as a whiteboard sketch. “At the time, the concept seemed almost impossible because the infrastructure required to support it simply didn’t exist in the industry,” said Investortools Co-CEO Jon Anderson. This can be difficult to believe given the IDN’s capabilities today. The network, which provides each client with an extensive view of their live secondary market, enables users to both sell their bonds and engage with live tradable offers in one interface. The need for the IDN became apparent over a decade ago as Investortools observed clients using our software to make investment decisions but relying on separate systems to execute trades. Jon Anderson explains, “We recognized that clients were already using our technology to determine what to buy and sell. The logical next step was to bring portfolio construction and trading together in a single, integrated workflow.” Jon Anderson and current Head of Sales James Morris began turning the concept into a viable solution. The idea quickly progressed into active development, followed by conversations with a top five dealer that ultimately became the IDN’s first direct dealer partner. In July of 2019, the first trade was executed via the IDN. Over the next few years, the network began to grow and mature into a broader trading ecosystem. “The IDN is not just another place to buy bonds,” said Jason Anderson, an Account Executive and Vice President at Investortools. “The IDN is the intersection of almost the entire secondary market with your portfolios, your analytics, and your rules. You’re not just finding any bond; you’re finding the best bonds that best fit your strategy and compliance before you commit to buy them.” Historically, Jason Anderson explained, “There have been different electronic trading platforms you could use to buy bonds. But you had to swivel your chair between where you evaluate fit and where you buy bonds, then swivel back to take care of the necessary post-trade operations. It made trading a lot less efficient.” With the IDN, everything lives in one fully integrated ecosystem. Clients can leverage automation to simultaneously assess multiple bonds, pre-allocate and size trades, extend bid lists to multiple venues and dealers, customize and save searches, and manage custodial allocation and delivery instructions – all combined with native, real-time analytics. “Analytics are not typically a native function of an EMS,” explained Bobby Herron, Account Executive and Vice President. “This is another unique piece of the IDN because analytics are fully integrated into the portfolio management system. The second you enter a price, yield, or spread, you know all of the key analytics for that security: the duration, convexity, the option-adjusted analytics. The best part is that the analytics are going to be consistent and reflect your firm’s unique perspective, which eliminates calculation bias.” This creates a more efficient investment process and puts industry-leading analytics at the center of every decision. “We’ve overlaid what you need with the best opportunities,” said Jason Anderson. For example, if a firm needs $20 million in New York, single-A bonds across 50,000 portfolios, they can leverage the IDN to identify the best combination of items to fill that need. “This is far more effective than hunting and pecking across multiple systems and venues,” Jason Anderson continues. This increased efficiency creates meaningful scalability, allowing clients to manage more portfolios without adding more people. “The platform has enabled leaner teams to compete more effectively and grow AUM,” Jason Anderson notes. Herron echoes this. “We’ve been told by a number of SMA managers that it used to take them between two weeks to a month to fully invest an account… those same clients are now accomplishing that in two days or less. Those are real results being driven by IDN-powered features, such as Trade Assist, Portfolio Builder, automatic rules-based allocation, and autoexecution. Now you can scale your business without disproportionately adding headcount and expense.” This ease and scalability are a big part of what has fueled the adoption of the IDN over time. The connectivity, which facilitated its first trade in 2019, has now accounted for more than a million trades, representing billions in trade volume each month. “The IDN is transforming fixed-income trading,” Jon Anderson said. “Our clients are currently achieving tremendous results, and we are all excited to continue delivering innovation that moves the market forward.” Contact: Jessica McDaniel Company: Investortools Web Address: https://www.investortools.com/
10 | Wealth & Finance Q1 2024 Best FinTech Software Development Company 2026 – USA To begin, please tell us more about the origins of ScienceSoft and what you deliver to your clients. We started as the exclusive software development partner of the NILIM Cooperative (later IMC), whose pioneering AI product was among the first of its kind commercially available. Together, we helped deliver AI software used by Motorola, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, and other global leaders. Following IMC’s acquisition by IHS Inc. in the early 2000s, ScienceSoft became a fully independent company in 2002. At that point, we strategically narrowed our focus to a handful of regulated industries. We entered the financial IT market in 2005, and over time, financial services became one of our major industry directions, especially investment management and insurance. Today, much of our work in these sectors is centered on AI transformation. And by that, I don’t mean just adding AI assistants to the existing tool stacks. Sometimes that is useful, but it is not transformation. To us, AI transformation starts when you look at how work is organized: how decisions are made, how data moves, where experts lose time, where customers wait, and where the current operating model is no longer fast or flexible enough. Depending on the client’s ambition, we may transform a specific process, such as investment planning or portfolio management, claims handling, or fraud detection. Or we may support a broader redesign of digital operations across the firm. What kind of solutions do you provide to support full business transformation? In fintech, we focus primarily on operational solutions for investment and insurance companies. That includes systems for workflow automation, decision support, data visibility, analytics, customer self-service, and digital engagement. We also build AI components: agents, copilots, machine learning models, data pipelines, APIs, and integration layers that enable enterprise AI transformation. for us, “cutting edge” is not about chasing every trend. It is about testing new technologies early enough to understand where they work, where they fail, and what kind of controls they need before they go anywhere near production. That principle is central to how we work. ScienceSoft’s Architecture and Solutions Center of Excellence runs internal research into emerging technologies and architectural patterns. Recently, that work has included agentic AI scenarios in investment research and insurance fraud detection. Regulation is part of the same conversation. Our compliance team monitors requirements and expectations from bodies such as the SEC, FINRA, GLBA, NAIC, and NYDFS, as well as emerging AI governance practices. In regulated industries, anything “new” is not a virtue but an added risk. So, before we recommend a new technology to clients, we need to know how it will stand up to compliance review. At its core, what is your company culture like? ScienceSoft’s roots as an AI company shaped our culture of innovation from the very beginning. We encourage our teams to challenge assumptions, explore new technologies, and look beyond conventional approaches. That mindset is especially important now, when AI is evolving quickly and established best practices become outdated fast. How would you describe the future of ScienceSoft? The next chapter of ScienceSoft’s growth will be defined by strengthening our leadership in AI-powered transformation across investment management and insurance. We see the greatest near-term opportunity in redesigning business processes around AI in a predictable, risk-aware way. To support this direction, we continue investing in specialized talent. We’re expanding our pool of financial domain consultants, AI experts, solution architects, data engineers, and project managers who can lead complex AI transformation initiatives from strategy through execution. We’re also growing our capabilities in enterprise AI governance and AI-enabled delivery. These areas are becoming increasingly important as financial institutions move from pilot projects to enterprise-scale AI adoption. We also see big growth opportunities across international markets. Over the past decade, ScienceSoft has established itself as an investment software development company serving clients well beyond North America. Going forward, we plan to further expand our AI engineering and wealth management software development practice in the GCC region, with a strong focus on local market requirements, client expectations, and regulatory frameworks. While financial software development services remain core to ScienceSoft’s business, we increasingly view them as part of a larger transformation agenda. Where we’re heading is helping investment and insurance organizations navigate large-scale AI transformation programs and turn AI into a governed, high-yield business capability. Contact: Nick Kurayev, CEO Company: ScienceSoft Website: https://www.scnsoft.com/ ScienceSoft is a global AI transformation and software engineering company founded in 1989. For nearly four decades, it has helped organizations use technology to change how they operate, compete, and grow. We learn more from CEO Nick Kurayev below, in light of its recent recognition.
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