Obituary
FIA regrets to report that Kevin Baldwin, who served as education director for the Institute for Financial Markets from 2006 to 2014, has passed away. Baldwin's passion was teaching the uses and benefits of derivatives, and he educated thousands of market participants and regulatory staff internationally, including in the US, UK, India, Turkey and Singapore. He also taught as adjunct professor of finance at the University of Illinois at Chicago's Liautaud Graduate School of Management on behalf of the IFM, an independent affiliate of FIA. Prior to joining the IFM, Baldwin spent two decades as a futures and options strategist, senior trader, instructor and introducing broker. He began his futures career in 1989 with Refco.
People News
Mairead McGuinness, an Irish politician who has represented her country in Brussels since 2004, has won the support of the European Parliament to become the European commissioner for financial services. She will move over from her role as Parliament first vice president. Valdis Dombrovskis, who previously held the financial services commissioner role, will take on the trade portfolio along with his existing responsibilities as executive vice president of the Commission overseeing economic policy. The reshuffle was prompted by the resignation of the former trade commissioner, Phil Hogan, for breaking coronavirus restrictions in Ireland.
Teo Floor has joined the Global Association of Central Counterparties (CCP12) as chief executive officer, replacing Marcus Zickwolff, who stepped down from the role. Floor was previously at Eurex Clearing, where he worked for 12 years, most recently as special advisor to the chief executive officer. In that role. Floor also served as a vice chair for the EMEA region in the CCP12 executive committee and co-chair and treasurer of the board of the European Association of CCP Clearing Houses (EACH). Zickwolff was appointed as CCP12’s first CEO in 2017 when the trade body opened its office in Shanghai. He will continue to work with CCP12 until the handover of all legal responsibilities to Floor, and will remain in the industry as managing director of ZIRE Consulting Services.
James McDonald has stepped down from his position as enforcement director at the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, ending his three-year tenure with a record number of enforcement actions brought in 2020. McDonald oversaw dozens of the CFTC's market-manipulation cases since 2017, including the recent action against JPMorgan Chase which resulted in a record $920 million settlement. The CFTC said Vincent McGonagle, principal deputy director of the enforcement division, will serve as acting director.
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing has announced that Calvin Tai, co-president and chief operating officer, will take over as interim chief executive on 1 January. Charles Li, the exchange's current head, told the board he wants to retire on 31 December, earlier than his planned October 2021 departure. Effective in January, Li will take up the role of senior advisor to the board for six months to provide guidance and ensure a smooth transition.
Citi has promoted clearing expert Mariam Rafi to global head of financial resource management for futures, clearing and foreign exchange prime brokerage. In this newly created role, she will focus on optimizing the bank's use of collateral and capital. She also will continue to serve as the bank's North American head of over-the-counter clearing and FXPB.
Commodity broker ED&F Man has promoted Gary Pettit to run its UK business. Pettit joined ED&F Man in early 2015 and was most recently its commercial director. Before that he was global head of financial futures and options at the firm. Pettit joined ED&F Man in 2015 from interdealer broker Icap, where he was global head of financial futures and options for three years. He also spent more than 12 years at MF Global in various futures and options brokerage roles before being appointed global head of financial futures and options. Earlier in his career, Pettit worked as a futures broker at Credit Agricole, on the Liffe floor for Refco and as a currency broker at Tullett & Tokyo.
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. has appointed Lisa Hershey as chief compliance officer, effective 1 January. Hershey joined DTCC in 2009 and in her current role serves as head of operational risk management. She will replace Susan DeSantis, the firm’s current CCO, who plans to retire in early 2021 after a 25-year career at the organization. In her new role Hershey will report to Ann Shuman, DTCC’s general counsel.
Global commodities broker Marex Spectron has hired Phillip Price as head of ferrous metals trading, reporting to Simon van Den Born, president of the group. The role is newly created, and Price will be responsible for building Marex’s market-making and trading infrastructure in ferrous metals derivatives, working alongside Sam Mehew, head of steel and ferrous derivatives, and Rhys Pittam, head of ferrous operations. Price previously traded ferrous metals at Stemcor and Ferrometrics and is vice chairman of the LME Steel Committee.
Cees Vermaas, the former head of CME Europe, has joined the parent company of The International Stock Exchange (TISE), as chief executive. TISE, founded in 1998, is a Guernsey-headquartered international stock market with more than 3,000 listed securities. Vermaas is relocating to Guernsey and will join the board of The International Stock Exchange Group Limited, as CEO and director on 2 November. Vermaas ran CME Europe from January 2015 until its closure in August 2017. He joined CME from Euronext where he was CEO of Euronext Amsterdam. Prior to that, he was head of European cash markets for NYSE Euronext.
Matt Lisle, general counsel and chief compliance officer at Drawbridge Lending, a Chicago-based startup that makes loans secured by bitcoin, has been named chair of the Global Digital Asset and Cryptocurrency Association. Global DCA, which started out as a grassroots working group, is an industry-sponsored, self-regulatory association that promotes the development of industry standards in the digital asset and cryptocurrency markets, with an initial focus on the spot market.
SteelEye, a London-based compliance technology and data analytics firm, has appointed Rob Friend as chief operating officer to help scale the business as the company looks to expand into North America and Asia Pacific. Friend previously spent 12 years at Bloomberg, most recently as global head of enterprise product implementation and quality assurance. Before that he was chief risk officer for Bloomberg MTF. Earlier in his career, Friend held middle office roles at Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and JP Morgan.
