Brutal job cuts at New York fintech's London office are raising eyebrows

Clear Street, the New York fintech which purports to be "on a mission to modernise the brokerage ecosystem," is new to London. For a moment, it seemed like all sorts of people were leaving banks to work there. Now, they may want to reconsider. 

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Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that Clear Street had seemingly inexplicably cut Matthew Cyzer, its head of markets, execution, and Phillip Hylander, a managing director on its execution team. The two men were only hired five months previously.

Neither Cyzer nor Hylander responded to a request to comment. Cyzer is a former partner in pan-European equities at Goldman Sachs in London. However, he left Goldman in 2012 and since a six-year period as president of Europe at BTIG, has flitted around employers, spending a year at Deutsche Bank and seven months at TD Cowen, which he left in July 2024, before his brief spell at Clear Street. 

Hylander was a former head of principal strategic investments at Goldman Sachs, but he too left in 2012 and has spent the past few years writing musicals and running a plastic recycling company.

Cyzer and Hylander's Clear Street jobs therefore looked like a shot at financial services career redemption for both men. It was seemingly not to be.

Clear Street told us it's still "committed to its build out in the UK and the EU" and said it only let go of "a small portion of London-based team members, representing one group partially responsible for regional equity execution." Nonetheless, one source in New York told us the cuts are "a mess."

Clear Street seemed partial to Cyzer and Hylander when it hired them five months ago. "The moves illustrate the continued migration of talent to Clear Street from a number of traditional financial services institutions including Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America and more," it said in a press release announcing their arrival at the time. 

Cyzer and Hylander appeared at Clear Street alongside three other people. They were: Tarquin Orchard, who previously worked with Cyzer at TD Cowen, and who is Clear Street's head of event-driven strategies; Stuart Holt, the former head of pan-European equity sales at Berenberg; and Luke Holmes, the former head of equity sales trading at Kepler, who worked with Cyzer and Hylander at Goldman. None of these three are thought to have left. All may be watching their backs.

In February, Clear Street said it had 40 people in its London office. The UK business is run by Jacinda Fahey, a former head of programme management at quant trading firm G-Research, who has a background in HR. 

Clear Street's more recent UK hires seem to have been of a higher calibre. It recruited Matthew Cousens, Citi's ex-head of EMEA platform sales as EMEA head of electronic execution in May and Malcom Pratt, one of BofA's top hedge fund salespeople in March.

Clear Street can pay well. Accounts published for the UK entity suggest average pay per head was $445k in 2024. 

There is some speculation that Cyzer and Hylander may have been cut before their probation periods ended, thereby limiting Clear Street's commitment to pay guaranteed bonuses or recruiter fees. This has not, however, been confirmed.

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