Ciarán McGonagle

Mr McGonagle, originally from Derry, will lead the creation and execution of the legal-first product vision and strategy at Tokenovate, a specialist in trade lifecycle event management, while also serving as in-house counsel.

He joins from the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), where he served as assistant general counsel focusing on digital assets and smart contracts.

During his time at ISDA, he contributed to the ongoing development of the Common Domain Model (CDM), co-led development of the Digital Asset Derivatives Definitions, advanced ISDA’s work on tokenisation, and coordinated ISDA’s legal work across multiple EU regulatory initiatives including EMIR, CSDR and the BRRD.

He has also led several industry groups including ISDA’s digital asset legal group and legal technology group, and contributed to industry initiatives including those led by the Financial Markets and Law Committee (FLMC), UK Jurisdiction Taskforce of LawTech UK (UKJT) and the Law Commission for England and Wales.

Prior to ISDA, Mr McGonagle was a vice-president at Deutsche Bank, an associate at Morgan Stanley and, after completing his law degree at Queen’s University Belfast, trained at Allen & Overy in London.

Richard Baker, Tokenovate co-founder and CEO, said: “We are delighted to have Ciarán on board. We firmly believe that the end-to-end lifecycle of a tokenised financial asset, and its representation as a tradeable derivative, must be rooted in legal-first engineering principles. Code is not law, law is law!

“Ciarán’s significant regulatory and legal expertise, coupled with his exceptional track record in driving innovation and change in the derivatives industry, will greatly enhance our strategy for product and platform development.

“We can’t wait to start working with Ciarán, and to leverage his extensive legal knowledge, proven ability to drive policy and product development, and expertise in navigating complex regulatory environments to advance our product vision and strategy.”

Mr McGonagle said: “Over the past few years I’ve had the opportunity to witness first hand how Tokenovate operates, especially with regard to its commitment to integrating traditional industry standards and protocols, like the Common Domain Model, within its cutting-edge, digitised framework for programmatic lifecycle event management.

“I am excited to join Tokenovate’s highly innovative team and contribute to delivering the next phase of its go-to-market strategy.”