The U.S. Senate has confirmed Treasury official Heath P. Tarbert by an overwhelming bipartisan majority to serve as the next chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Current CFTC Chairman Chris Giancarlo will depart July 15, when Tarbert is expected to take up the chairmanship. Tarbert's term as a commissioner of the CFTC will expire April 13, 2024.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced that Kevin Zerrusen will serve as senior advisor for cybersecurity policy to Chairman Jay Clayton. In this role, he will coordinate efforts across the agency to address cybersecurity policy, engage with external stakeholders, and help enhance the SEC’s mechanisms for assessing cyber-related risks. Zerrusen spent 30 years working at the Central Intelligence Agency, where his responsibilities included running the agency's cyber center. After leaving the CIA, he worked at Goldman Sachs for five years. For the past five years, he has worked as managing director at Goldman Sachs, where he led initiatives to strengthen technology risk governance, incident management, and insider threat programs.
Stuart Connolly was named the new chief executive of CloudMargin, the cloud-based collateral and margin management services provider. Connolly was previously the CEO of TriOptima from 2017 to 2019. Before that he worked for almost two decades at Goldman Sachs, most recently as head of EMEA derivatives clearing services. He replaced Steve Husk, who joined the company as executive chairman in 2015 and has been running the company as CEO since 2016.
ChartIQ, a financial technology company that specializes in charting software and desktop integration, hired Julie Armstrong as chief revenue officer. She will be responsible for executing all sales, marketing and communications strategies worldwide. Armstrong previously worked at CME Group, where she was head of market technology sales and product development, and Townsend Analytics, where she held several senior roles. Armstrong joined ChartIQ shortly after it announced a $17.4 million funding round that will finance its next phase of growth.
OCC, the Chicago-based derivatives clearinghouse, has appointed four senior leaders in its legal, risk, technology and business development functions. Janet Angstadt was named executive vice president and general counsel. She will be responsible for the strategic direction of OCC’s legal programs with a focus on compliance and regulatory requirements. She will also be a member of OCC’s management committee. She joined the clearinghouse from the law firm of Katten Muchin Rosenman, where she was a partner and co-head of the Chicago financial services practice. Pat Hickey was named senior vice president, product and business development. He will be responsible for the products and services delivered to OCC’s exchange partners and clearing firms, while also running competitive analyses to identify opportunities and threats within OCC’s product and business ecosystems. He previously worked in the Chicago office of Optiver, the Dutch proprietary trading firm, as head of market structure. Saqib Jamshed was named senior vice president, model risk governance. He will be responsible for enhancing OCC’s model risk management program to ensure appropriate measurement and mitigation of risk related to OCC’s quantitative models and tools. This includes liaising with regulatory examiners and other external parties regarding OCC’s models and risk analytics. He previously worked at State Street Corporation as the director of quantitative risk analytics, model governance. Sandeep Maira has been named first vice president, head of risk solution delivery and support. He will maintain OCC’s custom-built software, ensure that its evolving IT solutions align with its business objectives, and drive its transition to cloud computing. Maira has over 20 years of experience in financial and technology innovation, most recently as global head of risk, compliance and financial regulatory reporting technology with BNY Mellon.
Nasdaq promoted Bjørn Sibbern, a 10-year veteran of the company, to president of the group’s European markets. In this newly created role, he will take on responsibility for managing trading, clearing, settlement, and data businesses in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and the three Baltic countries. His previous role was head of Nasdaq’s global information services business, Nasdaq’s second largest business segment. In that role he led the acquisitions of eVestment in 2017 and Quandl in 2018 to expand the company’s analytics and alternative data capabilities. Before that, he held various positions in Nasdaq’s European business, including leading the global commodities trading business, serving as the president of the Copenhagen Stock Exchange, managing the European cash equities and derivatives markets, and overseeing Nasdaq’s European market data business. He will be based in Stockholm and will start in June.
In related news, Nasdaq announced the hiring of Lauren Dillard from Carlyle Group, the private equity and alternative investment firm based in Washington, D.C., to replace Sibbern as executive vice president for global information services. She will be based in New York and will have responsibility for growing the company’s index business, extending its investment data and analytics business, and expanding its data relationships with retail brokers worldwide. Dillard joined Carlyle in 2002 and most recently served as head of the company’s investment solutions unit, where she managed more than $40 billion in assets and 200 professionals across six countries.
On May 10, the London Metal Exchange announced the election of Gay Huey Evans as chairman of its board of directors. Huey Evans is a former banker, derivatives trader and market regulator who started her career in the OTC derivatives markets. She served as the chairman of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association from 1994 to 1998 and rejoined ISDA in 2011 as vice chairman and non-executive chairman for Europe. She will replace the current chairman, Brian Bender, when he steps down in December.
R.J. O’Brien has announced the designation of three of its senior staff. Daniel Staniford, a broker from Chicago, was promoted to chief sales officer. Also, the former senior director in the commercial agricultural division, Terry Gilhooly now oversees North American operation groups as the chief operating officer. Finally, Karen Northup, who had been COO since 2007, will run a new global solutions group aimed at identifying and implementing business solutions across RJO.
Berkeley Futures, the London-based futures brokerage, appointed Ian Johnson as chief executive officer. Johnson previously was European head of Macquarie Futures.
CME Group has appointed new senior management for several businesses within NEX Group as part of its integration process. John Edwards has been named global head of BrokerTec. He previously was head of BrokerTec EMEA. Guy Rowcliffe was appointed as global head of optimization services, including its TriOptima and Reset businesses. Finally, Jeff Ward is now serving as global head of EBS. He previously was head of EBS Asia and global head of NDFs and Forwards. Trey Berre, former head of the company’s derived data licensing partner services business and chief of staff for the company's office of the president, has been promoted to global head of data services. Berre will be responsible for the development of new data products, data distribution methods and analytics, and the integration of NEX data offerings.
Suzanne Calcagno joined HSBC as global head of regulatory response and oversight within Global Markets, which is one of the four business lines within the bank's Global Banking & Markets division. She is based in London and reports to Matthew Cossor, global head of trade data quality and regulatory reporting in Global Markets. She will be responsible for creating and leading a new team within the middle office that will manage HSBC’s global reporting inventory and risk based approach to controls. Additionally, she will be representing HSBC in the regulatory reporting industry as a whole, helping to drive collaboration across the sector in its approach to trade data reporting and controls. Previously she worked at Macquarie Group in Sydney and New York as director of compliance and global head of regulatory reporting. Earlier in her career she worked at LCH, RBC Capital Markets, Morgan Stanley and UBS.
Itiviti hired Linda Middleditch as chief product officer, based in London and reporting to Rob Mackay, the software company's chief executive officer. She joined Itiviti from Bloomberg LP, where she most recently was global head of product management for SSEOMS, the company's sell-side execution and order management solutions business. She has previously held senior product development positions with Citi and Morgan Stanley.
REGIS-TR has appointed Thomas Steimann as its new chief executive officer. He succeeds Elena Carnicero. Steimann joins REGIS-TR from Iberclear, the Spanish Central Securities Depository and subsidiary of BME Group, where he was external advisor for strategic projects in the area of domestic and cross-border post-trade securities services. REGIS-TR is a trade repository for derivatives transactions that is backed by Clearstream, the securities settlement and custody provider owned by Deutsche Börse Group, and Iberclear, the securities depository owned by BME Group. The trade repository is based in Luxembourg and recently opened an affiliate in the U.K. so that it can continue to provide regulatory reporting services in the U.K. after Brexit.
Phillip Capital Inc., the Chicago-based brokerage arm of Singapore's PhillipCapital Group, announced that Tony Drake has joined the firm as vice president of agriculture trading. Drake has more than 35 years’ experience in the livestock industry including brokering, trading, execution, research, and working with institutional clients’ hedging and risk management needs. Most recently he worked at CME Group as senior director, agriculture products, focused on updating and marketing all livestock futures contracts.
Sucden Financial hired Rafael Caporale as head of LME options market making. Caporale will be responsible for establishing and running a dedicated options trading team, targeting clients looking for liquidity in LME options. Caporale started his career in 2004 at Bache Commodities and began managing its options book in 2006. Following the acquisition of Bache by Jefferies and onward sale to Société Générale, Caporale was retained as head of metals options trading and deputy head of metals trading, until its withdrawal from OTC commodities in 2019.
"Rafael is very well-regarded within the market and has a proven track record in LME options, making him the ideal candidate to further enhance Sucden Financial's portfolio of services and underlines the firm’s commitment to LME trading," commented Deputy CEO Marc Bailey.
