WQGA

Failed

World Quantum Growth Acquisition Corp.

Raised
$200M
CIK
1851174
SPAC Ticker
WQGA.U
Focus
Financial Services, FinTech, Technology
External link: SEC Filings

SPAC Team

Leadership

Xavier Rolet KBE is the Chief Executive Officer, Chairman and Co-Founder of World Quantum Growth Acquisition Corp. Named as one of the 100 Best CEOs in the World in 2017 by Harvard Business Review, Mr. Rolet has over 30 years of experience as an executive and a demonstrated track record of successful turnarounds and continued growth in global financial services. Notably, as Chief Executive Officer of LSEG from 2009 to 2017, Mr. Rolet managed the transformation of the London Stock Exchange (the “LSE”) into one of the world’s largest exchanges by market capitalization. During his tenure, the LSE’s market value grew by approximately $15 billion, corresponding to an 8x increase in share price, delivering an average total shareholder return of approximately 30%. He also oversaw approximately $5 billion of landmark acquisitions by LSEG including, notably, MilleniumIT in 2009, FSA Transaction Reporting System in 2011, FTSE International in 2011, LCH.Clearnet in 2013, Bonds.com in 2014, Russell Investments in 2014, Mergent in 2017 and YieldBook in 2017.

Mr. Rolet has held various senior positions in the financial services industry throughout his career, with a focus on strategy & operations, technology & data investments and global growth. Most recently, he served as Chief Executive Officer of CQS, between 2019 and 2020. He worked at Lehman Brothers from 2000 to 2008, as Co-Head of Global Equity & Derivatives Trading in New York, as Head of European & Asian Equities in London, and as Chief Executive Officer of Banque Lehman Brothers in Paris. He was also Global Head of Risk & Trading at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson between 1997 and 2000. Prior to that, he was Global Head of European Equities at Credit Suisse First Boston between 1994 and 1996. Mr. Rolet began his career on the International Risk Arbitrage desk at Goldman Sachs International Ltd. in 1984 where he stayed on until 1994, departing as Executive Director and Head of European Equities Trading in London.

Mr. Rolet has been a Board Member of Golden Falcon Acquisition Corporation since 2020, Chairman of the Board of Shore Capital Markets since 2020, independent director and Chairman of the Risk Committee of Phosagro PJSC from 2018 to 2019 and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Phosagro PJSC since 2019, Independent Non-Executive Director of Seplat Petroleum Development Company Plc since 2020 and Independent Non-Executive Director of Tadawul since 2019. He is also a Member of the Senior Advisory Board of Towerbrook Capital Partners LP since 2020, an External Director to Portfolio Companies of the Public Investment Fund (PIF) since 2019, an Expert Advisor to the Shanghai Institute of Finance for the Real Economy (SIFRE) since 2018. In addition, Mr. Rolet holds positions at a number of other privately held companies; notably, he is Managing Member of Grayling Centennial since 2017 and Senior Advisor to Ranchlands Inc. since 2017. Mr. Rolet previously served as a director of MTS between 2009 and 2017, as a director of Elite between 2012 and 2017 and as a director of LCH.Clearnet between 2013 and 2017.

After graduating from the École Supérieure de Commerce de Marseille (currently the KEDGE Business School) with an MSc in Management Science & Finance in 1981, Mr. Rolet served as a Second Lieutenant and Instructor at the French Air Force Academy. He then attended Columbia Business School, where he received an MBA in 1984 and where he currently serves as a Member of the Board of Overseers since 2011. Mr. Rolet also completed his post-graduate studies from the Institut des Hautes Etudes de Defense Nationale in 2008. Mr. Rolet is an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE), a Knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honour of France, an Officer of the Royal Sharifian Order of Al-Alawi of Morocco and a Member of the Order of Friendship of the Russian Federation. Mr. Rolet has been awarded numerous awards and recognitions, including the Risk.Net Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.

Serge Harry is the Chief Financial Officer, Director and Co-Founder of World Quantum Growth Acquisition Corp. Mr. Harry has over 30 years of experience in capital markets and financial markets infrastructures, with an expertise in strategy & operations, M&A, restructurings, regulatory dialogue and engagement, investments, capital raisings and IPOs. Notably, during his time as Chief Financial Officer, Euronext’s market capitalization grew by approximately $9 billion, corresponding to a 4x increase in share price. He also helped deliver an average total shareholder return of approximately 45%, a revenue increase of 1.6x, an earnings increase of 2.8x and EBITDA margin expansion of 18 percentage points. He led over $1.6 billion of acquisitions and played a pivotal role in the $20 billion merger of Euronext with New York Stock Exchange.

Since August 2020, Mr. Harry has served as Chief Executive Officer of Quaternion H Consulting, a boutique consulting firm specialized in Board strategy and M&A advisory. Previously, he was Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer of CQS. He was also a Member of the Executive Committee of LSEG as well as Chief of Staff to the Group Chief Executive Officer and Head of European Operations & Post-Trade at LSEG from 2013 to 2019. Prior to this, he was a Senior Advisor to the LSEG Chief Executive Officer from 2011 to 2013, working on the successful acquisition of LCH Group. In addition, he served as Chief Executive Officer of SH Consulting, an investment, strategy and M&A Board Advisory Boutique in Financial Services, between 2011 and 2015. Before this, he held international executive positions as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of BlueNext, a leading global carbon credits trading exchange, from 2007 to 2010, as Group Head of Strategy and Member of the Executive Committee at NYSE Euronext from 2007 to 2008, and as Chief Financial Officer of Euronext from 2000 to 2007, during which time he oversaw the IPO of Euronext in 2001 that resulted in a €400 million equity capital increase. Mr. Harry was also deputy Chief Executive Officer of Paris Stock Exchange from 1999 to 2000, which he joined from SICOVAM (now Euroclear France), where he held a number of positions from 1983 to 1999, including Chief Financial Officer and General Secretary.

Mr. Harry has had vast directorship experience across various roles, businesses, geographies and in highly regulated environments. He is currently Chairman of the Board of XTX Markets SAS Europe, a leading algorithmic trading firm, since 2019, and Member of the Audit Committee of XTX Markets Group since 2019. He previously served as Chairman of MTS Markets France between 2014 and 2019 and as Chairman of globeSettle between 2014 and 2019. In addition, he was a Board Member and a Member of the Audit and Remuneration Committees of LCH SA Banque between 2013 and 2019, CurveGlobal between 2017 and 2019, GL Trade between 2004 and 2008, Marco Polo Network Inc. between 2008 and 2009, ATOS Euronext Market Solutions between 2003 and 2007 and Liffe between 2002 and 2007.

Mr. Harry was ranked second of the top-10 most influential French financial executives in the City of London by eFinancial Careers in 2016. He was also a recipient of The Economist CFO Europe Best Practices Award in 2002 and of the Club des Trente Award for Best Financial Transaction in 2001. Mr. Harry received his MBA from Institut Supérieur de Gestion Paris in 1984. In addition, he received a Certificate in Corporate Governance from IFA Sciences Po in 2020 and completed the CFA UK Certificate in ESG Investing in 2020.

Antoine Shagoury is the Chief Information Officer and Co-Founder of World Quantum Growth Acquisition Corp. He has over 25 years of experience in driving disruptive change in the financial services industry, leading digital transformations at major U.S. and European stock exchanges, and one of the world’s largest custody and asset management banks.

Mr. Shagoury has served as Venture Partner in the Technology Practice of Ridge-Lane LP since May 2020. Previously, Mr. Shagoury was an Executive Vice President and Global Chief Information Officer at State Street Corporation between 2015 and 2019, where he was responsible for advancing and developing an enterprise-wide technology strategy. He managed all of State Street’s IT and enterprise data activities, directly supporting operations in 27 countries, including all major investment centers. During his tenure, the technology transformation and digitalization program delivered over $550 million of pre-tax net run-rate expense savings since 2017. Additionally, approximately $5 trillion of assets under custody were onboarded and over 40% of the institution’s systems were migrated to the private cloud by 2018. Prior to joining State Street, Mr. Shagoury spent five years at LSEG between 2010 and 2015, where he was the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Information Officer with responsibilities spanning capital markets, information and data services and post trade. During his tenure, LSEG achieved an unprecedented level of availability (100% for four of the five years), reduced execution latencies to less than 100 microseconds and also grew its Technology Services revenue by approximately 11%. Mr. Shagoury was also Chief Information Officer at the American Stock Exchange, and, after the American Stock Exchange was acquired by the New York Stock Exchange in 2008, at the New York Stock Exchange Alternext between 2003 and 2009, where he led the development of the Exchange’s trading systems as well as managed trading and floor operations. Before that, he held various technology leadership positions at Instinet between 1993 and 2003, most notably corporate Chief Technology Officer. Mr. Shagoury began his career at Datastream Corporation, where he spent two years between 1990 and 1992.

Mr. Shagoury currently serves as Strategic Advisor to Manetu, a provider of cryptographic solutions for data privacy management, and as a Non-Executive Advisor to Cast Software since 2020. He previously served as a Non-Executive Advisor at SparkCognition between 2017 and 2019 and Non-Executive Advisor for Tadawul between 2008 and 2012. Mr. Shagoury served as Non-Executive Director at The Advanced Cyber Security Center between 2015 and 2019, Cloud Technology Partners between 2015 and 2017, National Stock Exchange (a subsidiary of the CBOE) between 2012 and 2014, and Non-Executive Director of SIAC between 2004 and 2007. In addition, during his time at LSEG, he was an Executive Director of various subsidiaries, including FTSE Russell, Russell Investments, Borsa Italiana, LCH Clearnet, MTS, GATElab, ExactPro, globeSettle, MilleniumIT and Turquoise.

Mr. Shagoury won a Gold Stevie® Award for Digital Executive of the Year 2018 at the American Business Awards. He was also listed on Institutional Investor’s The Tech50 for four years in a row between 2013 and 2017 and recognized by Financial News as CTO of the Year 2011. He earned a BSc in Business Administration, concentrating in Management Information Systems from Rochester Institute of Technology in 1993.

Michel Brogard is the Chief Development Officer and Co-Founder of World Quantum Growth Acquisition Corp. He has over 20 years of experience in business building and fund-raising.

Between 2019 and 2020, Mr. Brogard served as Chief Executive Officer Americas and Senior Advisor at CQS. He was responsible for restructuring and expanding the firm’s U.S. operations, contributing to CQS’s over $1 billion of assets under management increase between 2019 and 2020. He also helped develop CQS’s Diversity and ESG strategy. Previously, from 2005 to 2015, he was a Managing Partner, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer and Head of Business Development at Amber Capital, a hedge fund that he co-founded in 2005 and which grew its assets under management by 4.7x, to $7.0 billion by 2008. He helped open and manage Amber Capital’s three offices in New York, London and Milan. Prior to that, Mr. Brogard was a Managing Director in European Equities at Credit Suisse First Boston / Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Inc. between 2000 and 2005. Before this, he held various senior positions at HSBC Securities between 1996 and 1999, Lehman Brothers between 1995 and 1996, Merrill Lynch between 1994 and 1995 and Banque Paribas between 1987 and 1994.

From 2007 to 2011, and also in 2019-2020, Mr. Brogard served as an elected Board Member of the Washington, D.C.-based Managed Funds Association (MFA), an advocate for the global hedge fund industry. He has served as Trustee, Executive Committee Member and Chair of the Finance and Investment Committees and committee member of the Employees’ Retirement Plan of the Lycée Français de New York since 2018 and between 2003 and 2016. Mr. Brogard has also been Chairman of the Investment Committee of the NY French American Chamber of Commerce since 2015 and a Board Member of the French American Chamber of Commerce Foundation since 2020. He has also been a member of the Investment Committee of the French American Aid for Children nonprofit organization since 2016. He has been a member of the Global Advisory Board of The Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business at Columbia Business School since 2017. From 2017 to 2019, he was a member of New York Angels, a seeding platform which provides equity capital to early stage companies.

Mr. Brogard earned his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering at INSA Strasbourg, France in 1984 and his MBA at Columbia University in 1986. In 2008, the French Minister of Education awarded Mr. Brogard the title of Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques.

Delphine Brès is the Chief Administrative Officer and Co-Founder of World Quantum Growth Acquisition Corp. She has over 20 years of experience, mainly in telecommunications, banking and financial services, with an expertise in restructuring, primary markets, European affairs, corporate secretary and communications.

Ms. Brès served at LSEG as Senior Development Manager for France from 2015 through the end of 2019 and Head of Primary Markets for Western Europe from 2016 to 2018. She served as Global Head of Group Internal & External Communications at Crédit Agricole S.A., one of the largest European systemic banking groups, from 2013 to 2015, Chief of Staff to the Group General Secretary at Crédit Agricole S.A. from 2010 to 2015 and Head of European Regulatory Affairs at Fédération Nationale du Crédit Agricole (the holding company of Crédit Agricole S.A.) from 2007 to 2010.

Prior to this, Ms. Brès held several roles in marketing, relationship management and communications between 1997 and 2007. Ms. Brès served as Non-Executive Director of MTS Markets France between 2017 and 2019. Ms. Brès received a Master degree of European Affaires from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques - Paris (also known as Sciences Po Paris) in 1996 and holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from Université Paul Valéry – Montpellier III, France.

Sharda Cherwoo has agreed to serve as an Independent Non-Executive Director of World Quantum Growth Acquisition Corp. upon the effectiveness of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part. Ms. Cherwoo has over 25 years of executive experience as a strategic and innovative organizational leader with specialized industry focus in private equity, financial services, healthcare and emerging and disruptive technology.

Ms. Cherwoo has been a Board Director of Tax Analysts since 2020, an independent Board Director of World Fuel Services Corp. since 2020, a member of the Advisory Board of Land O'Lakes Inc. since 2020 and a member of the Board of Trustees of International House of New York since 2008.

Ms. Cherwoo is a former senior partner at Ernst & Young LLP (“EY”), where she garnered extensive operating experience serving global clients across EY’s four service lines - audit, tax, management consulting and transactions advisory (M&A) practices. In October 2015, Ms. Cherwoo launched and spearheaded EY’s Intelligent Automation program, with a focus on strategic direction, governance and risk management. As part of that role, she also directed EY’s investments in robotic process automation (“RPA”) and digital transformation initiatives. She also advised a number of Fortune 500 companies on their intelligent automation strategies, including operating models, digital and talent transformation planning. Ms. Cherwoo also served as a Senior Advisory Partner in EY’s Private Equity practice group since 2009 and served financial services clients as a Global Client Service Partner and Global Tax Account Leader since 1991. In those roles, she was responsible for serving select EY clients, advising on digital transformation, RPA initiatives, complex tax accounting and global tax planning, as well as mergers, acquisitions and divestitures and their impact on business and global tax strategies. From 2001 to 2004, Ms. Cherwoo served as the founding Chief Executive Officer of EY’s Global Shared Services operations in Bangalore, India, which was EY’s first global offshoring center for client-facing operations. Prior to that, Ms. Cherwoo held various senior leadership roles and other positions since joining EY in the U.S. in 1982 in the audit practice.

In addition to her strategic, operational and leadership roles, Ms. Cherwoo has been committed to mentoring and bringing innovative ideas to diversity and inclusiveness efforts. She has received the 2018 Silver Stevie® Award Most Innovative Woman of the Year; 2017 Best in Biz award for Innovator of the Year; 2017 Gold Stevie Award® for Innovation of the Year. In 2019, she received the Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business award.

Ms. Cherwoo is a Certified Public Accountant and holds a B.Sc. in Accounting as Valedictorian from Sacred Heart University (1982). Ms. Cherwoo has also attended Executive Education programs at Harvard Business School for Strategic Leadership for EY Partners and at Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management.

Ahmad Deek has agreed to serve as an Independent Non-Executive Director of World Quantum Growth Acquisition Corp. upon the effectiveness of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part. Mr. Deek has over 20 years of experience as an executive and proven leadership in establishing a risk culture and framework at multinational organizations, with a focus on managing market, operational, counterparty and liquidity risk of financial assets. He also has a strong background in data science, cloud technology and an interest in quantum computing.

Between 2019 and 2020, Mr. Deek served as Chief Risk Officer and Head of Data Science at CQS. During this time, he helped define the firm’s ESG strategy by adapting the research, investment and risk processes to ESG ratings and alternative data. He also spear-headed the digital transformation of the firm, establishing a technology roadmap, centralizing and democratizing data, and applying big-data and machine-learning tools to investment and risk management analysis. Prior to that, Mr. Deek was Chief Risk Officer and Head of Quantitative Analysis at Oppenheimer Funds from 2018 to 2019. Mr. Deek also spent over 25 years from 1993 to 2018 at Goldman Sachs, most recently serving as Head of Data Science for Goldman Sachs’ Consumer Division, building Marcus for consumer lending, savings and revolving credit products. He also held several roles within Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Prime Brokerage, Equity and Fixed Income Securities Divisions. Mr. Deek began his career in 1991 as a Development Engineer at Mentor Graphics.

Mr. Deek graduated from Syracuse University in 1991 with an MS in Computer Engineering. He also completed an MBA at the NYU Stern School of Business in 1996.

Peter K. Lenardos has agreed to serve as an Independent Non-Executive Director of World Quantum Growth Acquisition Corp. upon the effectiveness of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part. He currently serves as Chief Financial Officer of U.K.-based OSTC Group Holdings Ltd., a global market-making and trading firm. Previously, he served as Chief Financial Officer and then Chief Executive Officer of Cinnober Financial Technology AB (“Cinnober”) between 2018 and 2019, a publicly-listed financial technology company with over 300 employees and a blue-chip client roster on six continents. At Cinnober, he was responsible for strategy, finance, sales/business development, client engagement, restructuring (including rightsizing the cost base) and funding. He led the $220 million sale of Cinnober to Nasdaq Technology AB, which resulted in a greater than 70% return on Cinnober’s share price during his tenure as CEO.

Prior to Cinnober, Mr. Lenardos spent the majority of his career between 2001 and 2018 in investment banking in both the U.S. and U.K., covering M&A advisory, capital raising, equity research and corporate broking, largely at William Blair & Co. and RBC Capital Markets. As an investment banker in the U.S., he advised clients on M&A deals and helped raise capital via public and private equity offerings collectively totaling in the billions of U.S. dollars. In the U.K., he worked on both IPOs and secondary capital raises, collectively totaling in the billions of British pounds.

Mr. Lenardos received a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting summa cum laude from Mendoza Business School (University of Notre Dame) in 1997. He earned his MBA with Distinction from the Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern University) in 2001. Additionally, in 2019, Mr. Lenardos completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.

Emer Timmons OBE has agreed to serve as an Independent Non-Executive Director of World Quantum Growth Acquisition Corp. upon the effectiveness of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part. Ms. Timmons has over 20 years of international experience within start-ups and multi-national organizations, combining P&L accountability, strategy conception and delivery as well as IPO management.

In January 2019, Ms. Timmons founded ET Solutions, a provider of strategic engagement professional services and programmes, delivered through consultancy and client focused experiences. In September 2019, she was appointed to Co-Chair the “Leaders as Change Agents” Board, a U.K. government-backed Board aimed at intensifying the campaign for greater diversity at senior levels of business. From 2017 to 2020, Ms. Timmons served as a Non-Executive Director of the FTSE 100 listed Flutter Entertainment, where she was a member of the Audit, Remuneration and Nomination Committees. Previously, between 2016 and 2019, Ms. Timmons was the Chief Marketing Officer and President of Enterprise Sales for Brightstar, a leading global mobile services company. Prior to this, she was the first female President in BT’s 175 year history, having joined the group in 2006. She was responsible for BT’s multi-billion Global Services U.K. and Product business and played an integral role in its successful turnaround, and helped restore strong profitability and significant market share growth.

Ms. Timmons is also the Vice-Chair of Maynooth University Industry Business Council for the School of Business, part of the National Universities of Ireland.

Ms. Timmons has received various industry recognitions over the last few years including: top places on the Financial Times and HERoes 100 Female Champions of Women in Business list for the last three consecutive years, U.K. Woman of the Year from the Women in IT Awards, the Stevie® International Awards for both Global Female Business Executive of the Year and Global Maverick of the Year, one of the Most Impactful B2B Marketing leaders in Europe and Female U.K. Corporate Leader. She was also awarded the CBI First Women Award for Business Services.

Ms. Timmons achieved a degree in Mathematics and Economics from the National University of Ireland in 1995.