The new appointments come just two months after Japanese finance firm Softbank sold its 28.5% stake in the company to founder Brian Maccaba and private equity outfit FinVentures.

The new hire will be expected to consolidate gains made by Cognotec in the past two years, following heavy losses in the early part of the decade.

Says CEO Maccaba: "Cognotec's sales have grown by more than 50 percent in each of the last two years and last year's profits more than doubled. Industry research indicates further significant growth in the online trading of foreign exchange through to 2010."

He says the firm is investing heavily in its new RealStream trading platform in an effort to capitalise on pent-up demand.

James McNaught-Davis, who re-joins the board of Cognotec after a four-year hiatus, has extensive experience in both the financial and software industries. Early in his career, he worked in investment banking at Merrill Lynch and in mergers and acquisitions and corporate development at Misys. Since 1996, McNaught-Davis has worked in the venture capital industry and has been a managing director and partner at Warburg Pincus and a general partner at Advent. He is currently chairman of Valista and a director of Fineos.

Appointed as deputy chief executive officer, Bernadette Cullinan has, over the past decade, been CEO of SteelTrace and Novum and COO of Performix. She is also the current chairman of the Irish Software Association.

Mike Thrower is well-known on the fintech software circuit, joining Cognotec after a ten-year spell at Wall Street Systems, where he worked as director of marketing and business development. Thrower began his career on the graduate training programme at JPMorgan, where he subsequently spent seven years, prior to moving to positions in Credit Suisse and Hill Samuel.