Background & Biography
Hajdukovic’s background is in economics, regulation and the design of financial markets. Royal Holloway, University of London, records that he completed a PhD in Economics in 2007 and subsequently worked at the London Stock Exchange. Before that, he had undertaken consulting in economic modelling and European Union regulation. The university’s career account describes responsibilities for originating and developing equity, fixed-income and fund products. Its job title is historical, but it provides a primary institutional source for his education and the foundations of his capital-markets career.
His professional profile publicly identifies London as his location, supporting the United Kingdom as the primary professional market used here. In June 2023, an article he wrote for LSEG identified him as Head of New Primary Markets. He argued for an intermittent trading mechanism that would let private companies offer occasional liquidity while remaining private. That position shows that his work on market access predates the recent tokenization initiatives. It also illustrates a consistent concern with how market structures serve companies at different stages, rather than treating a public listing as the only possible outcome.
Public role descriptions have changed as LSEG’s initiatives developed. The company’s September 2025 DMI launch and its February 2026 Apex announcement identify him as Head of Digital Markets Infrastructure. In a September 7, 2026 recorded interview, he was introduced as Head of Securities Digitization, a title also reflected in September conference material as Securities Digitisation. This profile uses that later public title without assuming an unannounced appointment date or a precise change in internal reporting lines. The documented responsibilities and projects remain more informative than an inferred organizational chart.
Notable Contributions
On September 15, 2025, LSEG announced that Digital Markets Infrastructure had launched for private funds and facilitated its first transaction. Developed with Microsoft and powered by Azure, the platform was designed to support a securities lifecycle extending from issuance and distribution to settlement and servicing. The first disclosed transaction was a primary fundraise by MembersCap for MCM Fund 1, with Archax acting as nominee for a web3 foundation. Reuters independently reported the launch. This establishes an operating transaction; expansion into further asset classes remained a plan in the original announcement.
As the executive quoted in that release, Hajdukovic described the objective in terms of access, workflows and connectivity. The platform was intended to make private funds discoverable through LSEG Workspace and connect fund managers with professional investors within existing workflows. That distribution element is important to the proposition: a new ledger has limited value if eligible investors cannot find or use the instruments recorded on it. The launch belongs to LSEG and its partners. It does not establish that Hajdukovic individually designed the technology or that all projected commercial benefits had been achieved.
His own LSEG article on DMI explains the design philosophy in greater detail. It emphasizes connecting both digital and conventional systems and offering components that can fit alongside infrastructure clients already have. The same article distinguishes DMI’s private-fund work from the London Stock Exchange’s Private Securities Market, which uses the PISCES framework for intermittent auctions in private-company shares. These are different services and should not be collapsed into a single blockchain exchange. References in the article to future secondary transactions are also separate from the primary fundraising already demonstrated.
Two 2026 announcements show how the private-fund proposition was being extended. In February, LSEG and Apex Group announced a connection through Apex’s digital custody and distribution service, with a stated first-half 2026 go-live target. That target is reported as an announced timetable, not assumed evidence of completion. In May, StepStone announced that it had joined DMI and that evergreen strategies spanning private equity, private debt and infrastructure were available on the platform. StepStone’s release specifically framed access around professional investors, including the wealth segment. Neither announcement means that the partners’ entire assets under administration or management had been tokenized.
The public-market agenda broadened during the same year. In July 2026, London Stock Exchange announced plans for LSE 24, a separate extended-hours venue, with client testing targeted for the end of 2026 and exchange-traded products planned for the first half of 2027, subject to approval. In September, it announced a partnership with Payward and work on UK tokenized-equity structures intended to preserve shareholder rights. It separately described an intention to list and trade xStocks on LSE 24 in 2027, again subject to regulatory approval. These are plans and exploratory work, not proof that LSE 24 or the proposed equity structures were already operational at the verification date.
In his September interview, Hajdukovic discussed the relationship between these initiatives and the existing market. He described a future in which investors could choose between conventional and digital forms and emphasized the technical work needed to connect them. He also distinguished LSE 24’s conventional trading technology from additional tokenization possibilities. His comments are useful as an on-record explanation of direction and design trade-offs, while the company announcements remain the more precise sources for product scope and launch conditions. The interview’s wider discussion should not be read as a blanket corporate commitment to every possibility raised by its participants.
Why Katharos.ai Follows Darko Hajdukovic
Katharos.ai follows Hajdukovic because his work is situated where established market infrastructure meets new distribution and ownership models. The private-fund launch provides a concrete starting point, and the later partner announcements offer evidence of how that proposition is being developed. His earlier work on private-company liquidity adds context: the underlying problem of connecting capital with businesses can be addressed through several structures, only some of which depend on blockchain. That distinction helps evaluate the purpose of the technology rather than treating tokenization itself as the achievement.
The next test is repeatable use. A first transaction, a new manager on a platform and an announced interoperability initiative demonstrate different kinds of progress. None alone proves deep liquidity, lower total costs or broad investor adoption. Katharos.ai tracks those distinctions and the division of responsibility among market operators, intermediaries and technology providers. The editorial interest is in the execution of financial-market infrastructure, without endorsing any fund, tokenized equity or investment strategy.
Areas to Follow
- DMI’s actual transaction activity, fund availability and servicing arrangements as participation expands beyond the first disclosed users. - Evidence that announced distribution links have gone live, with their investor eligibility, operating scope and jurisdictional limits clearly stated. - Progress on secondary-market functionality and connectivity between private-fund infrastructure and established financial systems. - Regulatory approvals and implementation milestones for LSE 24, digital securities depository capabilities and proposed tokenized-equity models.
Reporting Scope
This profile covers Hajdukovic’s public career, on-record explanations and institutional projects checked on October 6, 2026. The most recent public title is noted alongside the older company-issued DMI title because an employer appointment announcement for the change was not located. LSEG group activity is distinguished from individual services, and stated ambitions from completed transactions. No claim is made about personal holdings, wealth, investment returns or responsibility for every group initiative.
Areas of Influence
Exchanges & Infrastructure is the principal category: his relevance concerns capital formation, digital securities distribution, market design and connections between trading and post-trade services. The United Kingdom is the verified professional market. The projects have international counterparties and ambitions, but this profile does not infer additional personal bases or nationality from those relationships. Engagement with regulation is described as private-sector market development, not public supervisory authority.
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