S3 Partners Announces Addition of Industry Veteran Bill Stephenson

Firm to assume and relaunch AIR Summit

NEW YORK, April 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- S3 Partners (S3) today announced that Bill Stephenson will join the firm as a Managing Director. Stephenson will lead transaction cost analysis and best execution initiatives at S3, including the Blacklight Financing OMS, which helps trading professionals find the money in their financing relationships, fix their book, and avoid unhappy brokers. S3's best execution integrations and workflows will further optimize alpha generation for asset managers and the end asset owners.

In correlation with Stephenson joining the team, S3 will also assume a majority stake in the AIR Summit (AIR), the premier community focused on innovative technologies in the investment management process.  AIR, which Stephenson founded in 2013, hosts its flagship event in New York City, and has held past events in London and Ft. Lauderdale, FL. 

"S3 has always been an innovative force that brings together technology, data analytics and financial markets, and the addition of Bill and AIR helps further our capabilities for our clients," said Bob Sloan, Managing Partner of S3. "S3 was one of the early presenters at the AIR Summit and an ongoing sponsor of its events and the mission. Our investment in the re-launch of the S3 AIR Summit from its pre-pandemic success will help our customers stay at the forefront of finding new alpha, avoiding risk and fixing costs in their investment processes."

The AIR Summit was founded in 2013 and spun out of Franklin Templeton Investments in 2017, where Stephenson was the Global Head of Trading. Since the inaugural event, 115 emerging fintech companies have presented at AIR, resulting in over $2.7 billion raised in follow-on capital. AIR 6.0 will be held at the New York Stock Exchange in June 2022.

"Over my career, I have focused on finding new ways to generate alpha," said Stephenson. "The AIR Summit was one avenue in that discovery process, and the other was through integration and experimentation with emerging technologies and ideas; some failed, and others were wildly successful. I look forward to my new role at S3, which will allow me to both explore the latest technologies for alpha generation and to build upon S3's market-leading data and technology within the quickly evolving securities finance space."

Before joining S3, Stephenson was the CEO of Plia, where he will continue as Chairman, and spent 20 years at Franklin Templeton Investments. While at Franklin, he ran market data services, the investment quantitative research group, and the global trading operation, which executed equities, foreign exchange, derivatives, and securities lending transactions.

About S3 Partners:
S3 Partners is a leading technology and financial data analytics company that allows Buy and Sell Side market participants to obtain a clear and accurate picture of capital markets trading activity in real-time. S3 Partners provides the highest quality and most timely data for market Financing Rates (bid/ask/last), Short Interest, Float, Open Interest (Long Positions), and Proprietary Indexes (Squeeze, Crowded, Momentum). S3's most used product, BLACK APP, is the market standard for real-time Short Interest and Securities Finance data for more than 65,000 securities on desktops globally. S3's Financing OMS allows trading professionals to aggregate, optimize and score Position, Holdings, Cash, Margin and Swap Positions and enhances outcomes across the total life cycle of any trade—financing, derivatives and cash. S3 is the market standard source for the financial news media such as Bloomberg, WSJ, CNBC and FT. For more information, visit https://www.s3partners.com/.

Media Contacts:
Steve Bruce / Taylor Ingraham
ASC Advisors
(203) 992 1230
[email protected] / [email protected]

SOURCE S3 Partners