Obituary
FIA regrets to report that John Stassen, previously a principal outside counsel to several major futures exchanges, passed away on 19 March. Before retirement, Stassen was a senior partner at law firm Kirkland & Ellis in Chicago. A giant of the futures bar for decades, he was the principal outside counsel to the Chicago Board of Trade and guided the CBOT through challenges posed by the Hunt silver crisis and the Ferruzzi soybean crisis, among other events. He also played an instrumental role in the development and registration of the National Futures Association.
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Derivatives clearing firm G.H. Financials has appointed Sharon Shi Ning as group CEO-elect. Shi joined the company in 2012 and has led its expansion in Asia, where she currently serves as managing director of G.H. Financials Hong Kong. Subject to approvals, she will relocate to G.H.'s head office in London. Before joining G.H. Financials, Shi held various trading and banking roles in Mainland China, and worked at the Shanghai Futures Exchange. Shi also serves as the chair of FIA Asia and on FIA's board of directors. G.H. Financials' former CEO Mark Phelps left last month to become European head of R.J. O'Brien.
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing has appointed Daniel Sonder as co-head of emerging business development. Together with co-head Julien Martin, Sonder will be responsible for leading and developing the group's emerging business opportunities in data, ESG, carbon, and digital assets. They will also have responsibility for overseeing HKEX's fixed-income, currency, derivatives and post-trade services offerings. Sonder, who is currently chief financial officer of Brazil's B3, will join HKEX in May and will report to HKEX co-heads of markets Glenda So and Wilfred Yiu.
In other news, HKEX has named Adeline Ee as managing director, head of sales and marketing, ASEAN. Based in Singapore, Ee will head up HKEX's Singapore office and will be responsible for leading the expansion of HKEX's business across Southeast Asia. She will work alongside Roger McAvoy, who will transition to a new international client-facing role within the group. Ee will report to HKEX's co-heads of sales and marketing, Christina Bao and Kevin Rideout. She joins HKEX from Singapore Exchange, where she worked for nearly 20 years in various senior sales and product management roles.
Sarah Shore has joined ICE Clear Europe as senior director, risk, reporting to Viet Nguyen, interim head of risk. Shore was previously executive director of prime services at Goldman Sachs.
TP ICAP has appointed Darren Hayes as CEO of its energy and commodities business in the Americas. Based in Houston, Texas, Hayes will step into the role after more than six years as managing director of North American energy at TP ICAP. He previously worked at OTCGH, Nymex, NUON Energy Trade and Wholesale and Coastal Energy Trading.
Cboe Global Markets has promoted Tim Lipscomb, currently chief operating officer of Cboe Europe, to senior vice president, chief technology officer to lead the exchange's technology strategy, innovation and integration efforts globally. He will oversee all of Cboe's exchange, data and clearing platforms. During his time as COO, Lipscomb helped oversee several key strategic initiatives, including Cboe Europe's Brexit transition, which involved the migration of liquidity in EU securities from its Cboe UK equities exchange to its Amsterdam-based Cboe NL equities exchange, and the recent launch of Cboe Europe Derivatives. He joined Cboe Europe in October 2019.
Chris Povey has joined CME Group in London as executive director responsible for the development, management and growth of CME's listed FX options business. He reports to Paul Houston, global head of FX at CME. He joins from NatWest Markets in London where he worked for almost nine years and traded the EUR, GBP, CHF and Scandinavian OTC FX options books and developed electronic risk management solutions.
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association has promoted Lindsey Keljo to head of the association's Asset Management Group. Keljo, who also serves as associate general counsel, joined SIFMA AMG in 2014 from Squire Patton Boggs, where she advised financial institutions, corporations, and asset managers on a range of financial services legislative and regulatory developments. Keljo is based in Washington, D.C., and reports to SIFMA chief operating officer Joseph Seidel.
BestEx Research Group, a provider of algorithmic execution and measurement services, has appointed Andrew Westhead as managing director of research. Prior to joining BestEx Research, he was the director of smart execution at Graham Capital Management, a systematically focused hedge fund. Earlier in his career, he spent more than 10 years in the quantitative strategies group at Bank of America, leading the research and development of its futures execution algorithms. BestEx Research launched its suite of futures algorithms in early 2021.
Financial services law firm McGonigle has added Maggie Sklar, a former attorney for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, as a partner in its Chicago office. At the Chicago Fed, Sklar served as senior policy advisor and director of international engagement in the financial markets group. Before that, she was a senior regulator at the CFTC under both the Trump and Obama administrations. Before her public service, she was a civil litigator and government enforcement attorney at several law firms.
Technology provider Pico has named Stacie Swanstrom as chief product officer. Swanstrom's experience includes a 27-year career at Nasdaq, where she served in a range of executive leadership roles including executive vice president, global corporate solutions, and global head of access services. After retiring from Nasdaq in 2019, Swanstrom became a consultant in the private sector.
Crypto exchange FTX has named Steve Sadin as its head of gaming partnerships as the company seeks to build out its new gaming division. In the newly created role, Sadin will collaborate with major gaming brands to help developers launch tokens and own digital assets using FTX's upcoming crypto-as-a-service platform. Sadin most recently led WB Game's Boston studio, where he launched the mobile real-time strategy game, Game of Thrones: Conquest.
Grant Vingoe, current chair and CEO of the Ontario Securities Commission, will be the commission's first dedicated CEO after the Ontario government announced in its budget last year that the OSC's chair and CEO jobs would be split. Vingoe joined the OSC in 2015 as a vice-chair and was appointed chair and CEO in April 2020. The Ontario Ministry of Finance has also nominated the OSC's current vice-chair Tim Moseley as chief adjudicator of the new Capital Markets Tribunal, subject to a review by the Standing Committee on Government Agencies.
The Board of Directors of Borsa Italiana, part of Euronext Group, has appointed deputy chairwoman Claudia Parzani as chairwoman effective 27 April, following the resignation of chairman of the board, Andrea Sironi.
Barchart, a provider of data, tools and software to the global commodity industry, has appointed Michelle Howard as director of business development and strategy for Barchart's agribusiness solutions. Most recently, Howard served as an international business growth advisor of agriculture at New Zealand Trade and Enterprise.
The board of ASX has appointed David Curran as a non‐executive director. Curran was formerly Westpac Group's chief information officer and has previously held executive technology roles at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
