Principal-led technology advisory

Technology leadership for alternative investment firms.

Fractional CTO and senior technology advisory for hedge funds, investment managers, family offices and organizations that need institutional-grade leadership without necessarily hiring a full-time executive.

Limited engagements. Direct principal involvement. Independent advice.

30 years enterprise IT Former hedge fund CTO Former global engineering leader at Jefferies AI Cybersecurity Infrastructure

Three engagement models

Senior ownership, shaped to the work.

VanDien maintains a limited portfolio of relationships so each one retains direct principal involvement. The engagement can be ongoing, defined around a project, or focused on a time-sensitive situation.

Independent advice
without a reseller agenda

Alternative investments

The technology function has more than one client.

Investment teams need dependable systems. Management needs control of risk and cost. Investors, counterparties and examiners need evidence. VanDien connects those obligations in one operating model instead of treating each as a separate project.

Technology advisory for investment firms
i.

Investment operations

OMS and PMS workflows, market data, research platforms and the handoffs that support the trading day.

ii.

Cybersecurity and resilience

Identity, endpoints, third-party risk, incident readiness, business continuity and recovery that has been tested.

iii.

Infrastructure and providers

Microsoft 365, Azure, cloud, networks and vendors governed as one estate with clear ownership.

iv.

AI governance and adoption

Approved tools, data boundaries, accountable review and use cases that justify the risk and operating cost.

Working together

Direct principal involvement, from the first decision onward.

Some clients need ongoing executive leadership. Others need a defined assessment, project or second opinion. In either model, the person in the first meeting is the person accountable for the work.

The commercial terms follow the work: a retainer for ongoing leadership, a project fee for defined work, or time and materials for a one-time engagement. There is no fixed programme length to sign up for.

01

Establish the current state

Map the environment, providers, priorities and risks from evidence rather than assumptions. Urgent issues are separated from work that belongs in a roadmap.

02

Agree the mandate

Define the decisions VanDien owns, the people involved, the cadence, deliverables and measures. Scope and commercial terms are written before the work begins.

03

Operate and report

Run the agreed cadence, make the decisions, lead the work and report progress, risk and spend in language management can use.

Commission a review

Or buy the judgment on its own.

Not every decision needs a project behind it. If what you have is one consequential call (a proposal you do not trust, an architecture you are not sure about, an AI pilot somebody is pushing hard), you can commission an independent read on that alone. The scope and the fee are agreed in writing first, and nothing has to follow it unless you want it to.

See what you can commission
A private advisory session on one decision, with your material read in advance
An independent review of an investment, an architecture or a vendor proposal
Scope and fixed fee in writing, usually within one business day
A written recommendation you can forward to a board, an insurer or a lender
No reseller agreements with the vendors whose proposals we read

Who you are working with

You work directly with the person doing the work.

VanDien.io is led by Christopher Moskowitz, who spent thirty years inside enterprise IT before starting it. He most recently ran engineering for Jefferies, a full service capital markets, investment bank, leading a 55-person global organization that supported more than 16,000 endpoints on a budget of $15M to $20M. Before that he was Chief Technology Officer at two premier New York alternative investment organizations.

There is no account manager in the middle and no handover to someone you have not met. The person who assesses your environment is the person who writes the report, and the person who picks up the phone six months later.

About Christopher Moskowitz →

Thirty years in enterprise IT, twenty of them at CTO or global-head level
Environments up to 16,000 endpoints, across offices on three continents
Continuity and forensic readiness that have been used, not just documented
Findings in writing, with the evidence attached to each one
Independent of every vendor whose products we assess

VanDien Labs

We do not only advise on technology. We build it.

Labs is where product work, technical research and hands-on engineering live. Four commercial applications are shipping today, and they are practical evidence that the advice comes from someone still doing the work. Beside them sit the tools the firm runs on and the prototypes it is testing, from real-time intelligence to the governance of what staff send to AI, all described in the lab.

Windows & macOS
everything runs on your device

The first conversation should clarify the mandate.

info@vandien.io · (551) 236-3191 · Ridgewood, NJ, serving clients worldwide

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Discuss an engagement.

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