ZISHI has hired three experts including the first winner of the Apprentice to help manage its next phase of growth just one month after the training firm span-off from prop trading group OSTC.

London-based ZISHI said on Friday it has hired as its head of marketing Tim Campbell MBE, who won the first series of the Apprentice in 2005, Jeff Hearn as the firm’s new global head of innovation and digital strategy, and Claudia Martorana as a senior sales executive.

Chris Jenkins, the chief executive officer of ZISHI, said: “As ZISHI continues to grow, onboard additional large tier one institutional clients and seek out new opportunities to expand, we are really excited to welcome Tim, Jeff and Claudia into the ZISHI family.”

Hearn is a former managing director of the International faculty of Finance, a training firm, and Martorana worked with Hearn at IFF.

Campbell, who advised Lord Alan Sugar in the 2022 series of the Apprentice before becoming ZISHI’s marketing director and a member of the firm’s executive committee, said: “Education and training have always been a big part of my professional life, ranging from managing funds for young people to working on the Apprentice.

“That said, I like disruptive companies and I see in ZISHI the determination to drive change among the education of finance professionals and how that education helps individuals, firms and society more broadly.”

Campbell said ZISHI has huge growth potential, adding: “I like working with smaller firms as they can be more fleet-of-foot than their larger rivals which enables them to respond more effectively to changing customer requirements.”

ZISHI has acquired three firms in the past two years - FSTP in May 2021, BG Consulting in January last year and UK options training firm Volcube in late 2020.

And Campbell said acquisitions is part of the growth plan going forward: “At ZISHI, we are focused on organic and acquisitive growth. Organic growth is important as this enables us to focus on our existing client base through the delivery of more products while, going forward, we will be constantly on the look-out for interesting acquisition targets that present the opportunity to add new capabilities.”

Similarly Campbell said ZISHI plans to hire more subject-matter experts in future: “We are looking for acquisition targets and to widen the talent pool at our disposal to complement Jeff’s expertise in digital products and Claudia’s wealth of knowledge and business development expertise to meet the changing needs of clients and continue to deliver great products.”

OSTC confirmed in mid-August its plan to restructure the group by separating ZISHI from the new trading unit OSTC Markets.

Mark Slade, the former chief executive of OSTC and the new head of the Markets entity, said last month: “The time is right to separate our business activities into two individual standalone companies so they can pursue their individual strategic priorities.”

OSTC said in July that chief executive Lee Hodgkinson was leaving the firm after four years to coincide with the restructuring.

Hodgkinson, who replaced Slade as CEO in 2018, has since resurfaced as group chief strategy officer at Saudi Tadawul, the Saudi exchange group.