Cofunds, the UK IFA platform, has named Russ Thornton as chief technology officer, a role in which he is charged with overseeing the development of the platform’s systems and business architecture as it pushes ahead with new capabilities.

Thornton was latterly chief technology officer at McKinney Rogers, the management consultancy. His prior experience includes the design of multi-exchange futures and options clearing brokerage and data integration systems, as well as banking software rewrites.

In his new role Thornton will report to Stuart Johnson, Cofunds’ chief information officer, and take a seat on Cofunds' executive group committee.

Cofund almost trebled its IT resource last year and has said it will be looking to launch several new initiatives this year to support IFAs in the run-up to the implementation of the Retail Distribution Review. The RDR, which comes into force at the start of 2013, will see a raft of changes to the UK advisory industry, such as changes to charging structures and new minimum qualifications.