Deriv has appointed Rotimi Akinyele as Chief Technology Officer, elevating the executive who joined the online trading platform as Vice President of Security in July 2024. The appointment, announced on October 22, 2026, positions Akinyele to lead the company’s engineering organization with a focus on AI-native development and secure automation across all business functions.
- New Role: Chief Technology Officer, leading the engineering organization
- Start Date: July 2024 (as Vice President of Security); promoted October 2026
- Strategic Target: Automate 75% of manual workflows by end of 2026
- Primary Focus Areas: Workflow automation, internal AI intelligence layer, self-improving agentic loops for software development
Since joining Deriv, Akinyele has expanded his responsibilities across Security and Data, Compliance automation, Finance automation, Trading operations, and Antifraud functions. Throughout his tenure, he has embedded security and access controls into the company’s AI deployment strategy. Before Deriv, Akinyele served as Director in the Group Information Security Department at Dubai Holding, managing cybersecurity across hospitality, real estate, ICT, media, and education divisions. He also held the position of Head of Information Security and Business Continuity at a government authority in Ras Al Khaimah, UAE.
Rotimi has grown as a leader throughout the period he has been with us. I’m confident in him as CTO, and I look forward to working closely with him to build an AI-native Deriv. As we automate more and give agents greater access and responsibility, we have more systems and operations to secure. Our controls need to be the foundation of how we build.
– Rakshit Choudhary, Chief Executive Officer, Deriv
I am honoured to take on this role at a pivotal point for Deriv. Our engineering teams have spent the past year changing how we build, and my focus is to keep that pace while making sure security and controls grow with every system we automate. I look forward to working with our engineers to make that happen.
– Rotimi Akinyele, Chief Technology Officer, Deriv
The appointment reflects Deriv‘s strategy of promoting internal talent as it executes its transformation into an AI-native organization. The company has committed to automating three-quarters of its manual workflows by the end of 2026, with security controls embedded as a foundational layer across all automated systems and agent-led operations.
Rakshit Choudhary, Chief Executive Officer at Deriv. Source: LinkedIn
Rotimi Akinyele, Chief Technology Officer at Deriv. Source: LinkedIn
