FXGlobe’s George Agathangelou talks about the future, blue shirts, jeans and black shoes

2016 heralded a new era of innovation, and in the fast-moving FX industry, those at the cutting edge who are not content with simply going through the motions and emulating their peers before heading home at the end of the working day will likely reveal yet more industry-changing developments.

To give an insight into the personality, charisma and just what makes such things happen, FinanceFeeds met with some of the movers and shakers of the industry for an open and casual discussion on what the industry is likely to look like, with a splash of comedy for those who appreciate.

In this edition, George Agathangelou, General Manager at FXGlobe talks about the future for FXGlobe and where to next considering their fantastic past few years as young startup.

What’s new?

Everything seems to be changing in the industry landscape. New regulations could be a game changer in the near future.

From ESMA and the updates regarding MiFID II and MiFIR that will be transposed into Member States national law and will be implemented in January 2017, we can see a move towards transparency that will disrupt the current status quo.

As a few brokers have disrespected their clients, we can also see that CySEC has been taking the latest developments seriously and is becoming ever more vigilant to any issue arising from Cyprus Investment Firms.

A wind of change is coming but I strongly believe that whoever is doing a proper and at all times ethical job, should have a good night’s sleep every day and need not worry.

As for FXGlobe, we are just about to relaunch our brand and website to better portray our values. This is a work in progress and something that we are taking our time with fine tuning to make sure it is just perfect.

We are also looking at expanding after a very successful 2015 and early 2016. Hiring the right people and expanding our team in Cyprus to better cater for our customers and partners.

We also spend a lot of effort developing our systems last year to optimize the way we do business and scalable for future growth. Things are looking up for sure.

OK, so nobody is perfect. What is the biggest thing you can improve on from last year?

Personally, I could improve my own time management in regards to work/life balance as I have not been taking adequate care of my close ones lately.

All my focus has been on FXGlobe and I feel great to see all the effort finally paying off.

Funniest thing/ incident that happened in the office? Any cringe / epic fail moments?

Luckily there were not any epic fail moments so far and would like to keep it that way.

A funny incident I can remember is when all male employees arrived in the office wearing almost the same clothes by chance.

Our appearance did indeed show a team spirit that day as we were all wearing jeans, blue shirts and black shoes. Everyone was staring at the other laughing and joking about it.

If we were sitting here in one year from now having this conversation, what is the biggest thing you would hope to have achieved?

I would hope that the company’s Cyprus branch would actually triple or quadruple in size and in manpower, complementing our company’s growth into new regions and markets.

With our ever expanding strategy and the way things have developed for us in the last months I would not exclude this possibility.

We are actively hiring and hope to have secured a bigger better team with the right people to help us move into the next phase.