Philip Howson is a technology executive currently serving as the Chief Technology Officer at Algo Viral. Previously, he held the role of Chief Technology Officer at Iona Mind, a company that participated in the Y Combinator S21 batch. Throughout his career, he has held various senior technical and quantitative roles at financial institutions including XTX Markets, GSA Capital, Barclays Capital, and UBS.
Chief Technology Officer
Algo Viral
Oct 2025 – Present · 7 mos
Chief Technology Officer
Iona Mind
Oct 2019 – Jun 2025 · 5 yrs 8 mos
S21 Batch
Y Combinator
Jun 2021 – Sep 2021 · 3 mos
Funded by Y Combinator Summer 2021 batch
Mentor
Techstars
Feb 2017 – Jun 2020 · 3 yrs 4 mos
Mentoring on the Barclays Techstars Fintech Accelerator programme. Programme was shut down in 2020
Retired
Home
May 2016 – Oct 2019 · 3 yrs 5 mos
Partner
XTX Markets
Jul 2015 – Apr 2016 · 9 mos
Early member of an automated FX trading desk which eventually span out to form XTX Markets.
HFFX Desk
GSA Capital
Jun 2009 – Jul 2015 · 6 yrs 1 mo
Work for Barclays Analytical Trading (BATS) on their algorithmic trading system, in the Fixed Income space.
Algorithmic Trading Developer
Barclays Capital
Nov 2008 – Jun 2009 · 7 mos
Work for Barclays Analytical Trading (BATS) on their algorithmic trading system, in the Fixed Income space.
Analyst, Quantitative Trading Strategies
Oct 2007 – Nov 2008 · 1 yr 1 mo
Propriatry Trading Desk in UBS's Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities Division. The desk specialises in Algorithmic Trading.
Developer Equity algorithmic trading team
Jun 2006 – Oct 2007 · 1 yr 4 mos
Equity “Smart Execution” team – XN (eXecution Network) System At UBS I worked for the algorithmic trading / equity smart execution team as a developer on their core system for executing algorithmic trading strategies (XN). The system provides the ability for clients to execute large equity trades at volume weighted average price, time weighted average price, with minimum market impact etc. etc.
Associate
Morgan Stanley
Jun 2004 – Jul 2006 · 2 yrs 1 mo
At Morgan Stanley I work for the Bondtrading Technology team, specifically the E-Trading part of the team. Primarily I have been working with the research department on collection, aggregation and analysis of historical market data from the various markets we connect to. Recently I have designed and built a system for simulating the effect and analysing the performance of different algorithmic trading strategies using our repository of historical data. Additionally I have been working on a system which for executing these trading strategies in real time.
Developer
MIK UK Ltd
Oct 2002 – Apr 2003 · 6 mos
Worked as a part time developer on a number of applications for MIK UK Ltd who specialise in "Business Intellegence" / OLAP products. At the time the main clients were Daimler Chrysler UK and Toyota UK).
Intern
RBS International
Jun 2002 – Sep 2002 · 3 mos
I worked as an intern for the FX Options Trading Technology team at RBS, working mainly on the front end used for options trading (a system called Pabulum Trader). I was involved in a number of GUI improvement projects as well as various projects to integrate the system with other bank systems such as the firmwide counterparty management system Nucleus.
S21 Batch at Y Combinator
May 2021 – Sep 2021Co-founder of Iona Mind, Y Combinator Summer 2021 batch
1st, Computing at Imperial College London
2001 – 2004Awarded Governer's prize for highest overall mark on BEng Computing Degree.