London-based flexible staffing app Syft has appointed Tom Dignan as its chief technology officer.
Dignan has led engineering teams at Yahoo!, Earthlink and Excite@Home, architecting large-scale consumer internet systems.
He graduated from San Francisco State University at age 18 before earning a PhD in high-energy physics at Harvard University.
He also spent time at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Centre as a post-doctoral scholar.
CEO Jack Beaman (pictured above, right), who co-founded Syft with COO Novo Abakare (left), said: “Tom will be our very first CTO and we are incredibly excited to attract such talent.
“Novo and I have a huge vision for where we wish to take Syft and Tom is a crucial hire to ensure we achieve this.
“Not many start-ups in the UK can say they have a world-class CTO – but we can.”
Since 2009, Dignan has served as CTO of ReputationDefender, leading the company’s technology and development team.
Prior to joining ReputationDefender, he served as the vice president of engineering at Hands-on Mobile, where he managed a cross-functional international team of 100 developers spanning five countries responsible for building games and applications for mobile devices such as Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, NFL Mobile Live and World Poker Tour Texas Hold Em.
Dignan said of his appointment: “After moving to the UK this summer, I interviewed at a bunch of places and none of them got me as excited as Syft.
“Of all the places I’ve seen, Syft was the one that had the potential to become a massive worldwide opportunity.
“We’re right at the beginning of a huge growth spurt. It’s gonna be a fun ride.”
The firm has raised a total of £8.7 million and is backed by former world champion boxer David Haye.