U.S. Treasury official Heath Tarbert has been formally nominated by the White House to be the next chairman of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. The nomination, which was first announced in December, was submitted to the Senate on Jan. 9 and is now pending before the Senate Agriculture Committee. Tarbert currently serves as assistant secretary for international markets at the Treasury Department. Earlier in his career he was a partner at the law firm of Allen & Overy. If confirmed, he would succeed CFTC Chairman Chris Giancarlo, who has announced he plans to leave when his term expires in April.
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee and a veteran of Capitol Hill for four decades, has announced he will not run in 2020 and will be retiring. Roberts was elected to the House of Representatives in 1980 before being elected to the Senate in 1996. Roberts was the first member of Congress in history to have chaired both the House and Senate Agriculture Committees. Over the years, he has been a leader in preserving open, transparent and competitive markets, while also protecting and enhancing the integrity of the financial system. A key component of his leadership in recent years has been oversight of the enforcement and implementation of Dodd-Frank at the Commodity and Futures Trading Commission, notably in the wake of MF Global's bankruptcy.
Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) took over from Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas) as chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction over futures-industry related issues in the House. Peterson previously served as the ranking member for the Democrats when Republicans held control in the previous Congress. This is the second time Peterson has served as the Agriculture Committee's chairman, first serving from 2007 to 2011 when he played a key role in drafting the derivatives-related sections of Dodd-Frank. In related news, Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) has been appointed chairman of the House Agriculture Committee's subcommittee on commodity exchanges, energy and credit. Scott, who is also a member of the House Financial Services Committee, has been a member of this subcommittee for several years and will spearhead the committee's work on issues related to the futures industry.
Chris Concannon, the president and chief operating officer of Cboe Global Markets, is leaving the company to join electronic trading platform MarketAxess where he will become president and COO. In this role, he will oversee day-to-day operations, corporate development, long-term technology strategy and global data strategy, reporting to Rick McVey, the company's chief executive officer of MarketAxess.
He will also join the board of directors, with a particular focus on the company's corporate strategy. MarketAxess is one of the top trading platforms for corporate bonds and is known for its "open trading" initiative, which is based on the all-to-all type of centralized market widely used in equity and listed derivatives markets. "This is a great opportunity to join a highly successful company that leads the way in electronic trading in the large and growing global credit markets," Concannon said in a statement. "Having been an active participant in the transformational changes of other asset classes, I'm looking forward to joining Rick and his team as MarketAxess continues to digitize the credit markets and build on its record of innovation and growth."
Ed Tilly, the chief executive officer of Cboe, is taking over Concannon's role as president, and Chris Isaacson has been promoted from chief information officer to COO. In addition, Eric Crampton, formerly Cboe's global head of software engineering, has been promoted to chief technology officer.
Chris Perkins, head of OTC clearing at Citigroup, has been named head of foreign exchange prime brokerage in addition to his current responsibilities. The move is part of a plan to integrate Citigroup's prime financing businesses under a single umbrella.
Eurex Clearing has appointed Dmitrij Senko as chief risk officer. Senko will take over in July for Thomas Laux, who is leaving the firm. Senko joined Eurex in 2010 after a career in management consulting. In 2013, he became the risk department's head of risk analytics and model validation.
LCH has named Corentine Poilvet-Clediere its head of RepoClear and collateral management. Based in Paris, Poilvet-Clediere will be responsible for LCH’s euro-denominated debt and repo clearing service, RepoClear, as well as the clearing house’s collateral management function. Prior to this role, Poilvet-Clediere was global head of regulatory strategy at London Stock Exchange Group, where she played a central role engaging on a wide range of strategic policy issues, particularly in post trade. Before that, she was part of the team involved in the launch of CDSClear as Governance Manager at LCH.
Larry Thompson, a long-time veteran of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation and most recently its vice chairman, retired at the end of 2018. Thompson joined The Depository Trust Company, the DTCC's central securities depository subsidiary, in 1981 as associate general counsel. He was appointed to senior vice president in the early 1990s and was named general counsel of DTC in 1999.
Interactive Brokers founder and CEO Thomas Peterffy has announced that he will be stepping down in 2019. Milan Galik, who has been with IB for 28 years and has served as its president since 2014, will succeed Peterffy as CEO in the third quarter. Peterffy plans to continue as chairman of the board and "will remain closely involved in the operations," the company said in a press release.
Citadel Securities has appointed Matt Culek to chief operating officer. Culek has served at Citadel for more than six years and will serve as a managing director alongside his responsibilities as COO. He assumes the role left vacant after Scott Johnston became the parent firm's chief administrative officer in June.
Andrew Busch, who has served as the CFTC's chief market intelligence officer since April 2017, has left the agency.
Ben Pott, formerly head of government affairs at NEX, will join BNY Mellon as head of public policy and government affairs for EMEA, starting in March. Pott joined NEX in 2014 from the European Banking Authority.
Société Générale has added to its prime services sales team in continental Europe as part of a broader effort to strengthen its derivatives clearing capabilities in the region. The bank recently added the ability to clear client trades directly from its Paris office, building on existing hubs in London, New York and Hong Kong. Stéphane Eglizeau joined the bank as global head of sales for professional trading groups. Eglizeau, who is based in Paris, previously spent 11 years at ABN Amro Clearing Bank, most recently as chief executive officer for Asia-Pacific. He reports to Christophe Lattuada, global head of prime services. In addition, the bank added Ebru Ciaravino to its prime services sales force in Frankfurt, with responsibility for German and Austrian clients. He joined the bank after more than 15 years spent within Deutsche Boerse/Eurex Group.
R.J. O’Brien & Associates announced that Patrick J. Melia has joined the firm as senior vice president of commodity sales, working out of its New York office. Melia has more than 35 years of experience in energy exploration and in trading, brokering and marketing energy derivatives, including expertise in hedging and risk management strategies. He will report to Joe Raia, who joined RJO last year as its managing director of global commodity futures.
Matt O'Neill has left Morgan Stanley, where he was Asia-Pacific head of the firm's listed derivatives and OTC clearing business, and joined the Hong Kong office of Goldman Sachs as a managing director in its principal strategic investments division, which invests in fast-growing technology companies.
Itiviti CEO Torben Munch stepped down from his position and retired at the end of 2018. Munch led the Stockholm-based tech firm since 2016, including through the 2018 merger of Itiviti with trading platform Ullink.
ErisX, the Chicago-based company that is developing an exchange for cryptocurrency derivatives, has named Joseph Lubin and Cris Conde to its board of directors. Lubin is the co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain network and founder of infrastructure and service provider ConsenSys. Conde is a financial technology entrepreneur who co-founded Devon Systems and then went on to lead its acquirer SunGard as CEO until 2011.
Stephen Plestis has joined OpenGamma, a London-based software company that specializes in reducing the capital cost of trading derivatives, to lead its sales and operations team. Plestis previously worked at Credit Suisse for 14 years, buildings its sales team as head of its EMEA derivatives business. Prior to Credit Suisse, Plestis worked at Merrill Lynch for 10 years.
Christian Noyer, former governor of the Bank of France, has joined the board of directors of technology start-up SETL. The London-based company uses blockchain technology to facilitate payments and settlement processes, and reportedly is close to launching a central securities depository in Europe this year.
The Managed Funds Association has appointed Mark Epley as executive vice president and managing director, general counsel. Epley joins MFA from the Office of the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, where he serves as senior advisor and general counsel. He also has previously served in the Departments of Justice and Defense. As MFA’s chief legal officer, Epley will report directly to Richard Baker,MFA President and CEO, and oversee all legal aspects of the Association, including regulatory and legal matters related to MFA policy initiatives.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has named Manisha Kimmel senior policy advisor for regulatory reporting. In this new role, Kimmel will coordinate the SEC’s oversight of the self-regulatory organizations’ creation and implementation of the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) and work closely with the Division of Trading and Markets and other divisions and offices on the CAT and other regulatory reporting matters. Kimmel joins the SEC from Refinitiv, where she served as its head of regulatory and compliance for wealth management.
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