Risk and financial crime compliance solutions provider Accuity has expanded its global innovation team with two leadership appointments.

Neela Das has been appointed to lead the company’s global, multi-disciplinary innovation team, with regional hubs in London, Paris, Chicago and Singapore. She will be working with Ronald Hobbs, who has been appointed director of technology for innovation.

Das brings a wealth of experience working in disrupted markets. She held the digital director role at New Scientist, and as part of the senior management team developed its digital strategy. At Accuity, she will develop the innovation strategy, collaborating with the risk, compliance and payments business and technology teams across the globe.

Hobbs will lead the innovation team’s engineering experts, having been the technical brains behind Accuity’s dual-use goods trade compliance solution. He joins after multiple technical leadership roles within RBI International. As the industry has evolved so have the projects he has tackled, delivering everything from centralised matching and information retrieval systems to the secure cloud-based evolution of key software products.

Accuity’s innovation teams operate like startups within the larger organisation, working directly with clients to develop proof of concepts. Since 2015, the innovation team has tripled in size.

“Companies need to innovate constantly so they can respond to evolving regulation and new ways of working,” says Hobbs. “We look forward to creating cutting edge solutions for our clients. Going forward, Accuity will focus on utilising the latest technologies, such as distributed ledger technology, artificial intelligence, machine learning, predictive analytics and big data, to adapt to the rapidly changing and evolving financial landscape.”