Obituary
FIA is saddened to report the passing of Patrick Birley, who died last month aged 58. Birley began his career in the financial markets as the second employee of the fledgling South African Futures Exchange before being promoted to chief executive officer when he was only 24. He helped steer the exchange to electronic trading during the 1990s and left when it was acquired by the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 2001.
After relocating to his native UK, Birley held several senior roles in the industry, including chief executive of LCH.Clearnet’s UK arm in 2006-07 and CEO of both the European Climate Exchange, which was acquired by Intercontinental Exchange in 2010, and NEX Exchange (formerly ICAP Securities and Derivatives Exchange). After his departure from NEX Exchange in 2019, Birley dedicated himself to causes close to his heart, volunteering for the Samaritans and investing in environmental causes. At the time of his death, he was in the process of setting up a charity for young people with mental health problems in the West of England, where he had made his home after leaving the City. Our condolences go out to his friends, colleagues and family. Read more about Birley's legacy and career here.
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Intercontinental Exchange has announced two high-level management changes that will take effect in January. Elizabeth King, ICE’s chief regulatory officer and president of its sustainable finance business, will take on the responsibility of ICE’s six clearinghouses and its global risk management team. Those clearinghouses include ICE Clear Europe in London, ICE Clear Netherlands in Amsterdam, ICE Clear US and ICE Clear Credit in the US, ICE NGX in Canada, and ICE Clear Singapore. Currently, King oversees the firm’s global regulatory and government affairs initiatives as well as its sustainable investing initiatives, which include climate and emissions data analytics for institutional investors. Before joining ICE in 2014, King served as general counsel and corporate secretary of the New York Stock Exchange and deputy general counsel and global head of government and regulatory affairs at Knight Capital Group. From 1997 to 2010, King worked in the trading and markets division at the US Securities and Exchange Commission, where she was responsible for the SEC's regulatory program for oversight of securities markets, with focus on equity derivatives markets. King will take over the clearing role from Christopher Edmonds, who has been appointed head of ICE's fixed income and data services business. He will succeed Amanda Hindian, who is leaving the company.
The fixed income and data services business, which was built up through the acquisition of IDC, BondPoint and TMC, accounts for 29% of ICE's revenues, and will soon include mortgage data products through the acquisition of Black Knight. Edmonds has been with ICE for nearly 14 years in various positions including chief development officer, where he oversaw all clearing operations and global risk management teams, global head of clearing and risk where he led teams supporting the company’s six derivatives clearing organizations, and senior vice president of financial markets where he led the product sales teams in the areas of fixed income, commodities and financial futures. As part of the reorganization, the sustainable finance team that King established will report to Edmonds, while King will retain her role as chief regulatory officer. Both King and Edmonds will report to Jeff Sprecher, ICE's chief executive officer.
The London Metal Exchange has appointed current interim chairman John Williamson to serve as chairman starting November 2023 through to April 2026. Williamson was appointed as interim chairman in April 2023 after Gay Huey Evans stepped down. "We will continue to focus on measures that will advance the market's structure, keeping the LME competitive and attractive, driving liquidity, and supporting our members and customers as they deliver their own success," Williamson said in a statement. Williamson, who joined the LME board, in September 2021, has more than four decades of experience in the financial services industry, much of that spent in Asia. He has held senior positions with firms including Morgan Stanley, NatWest Securities and Wood Mackenzie & Co. From 2008 to 2021, he served on the board of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, the parent company of LME. In addition to his responsibilities at LME, he serves as chairman of the UK Tote Group, a gambling company established by the UK government for betting on horse races, and an independent non-executive director of Pacific Basin Shipping, a shipping company focused on dry bulk cargo.
Former Credit Suisse chief technology and operations officer Joanne Hannaford has joined Deutsche Bank as its new chief information officer for its corporate bank based in London. She replaces Rafael Otero who served in the position from 2021. Prior to her two years at Credit Suisse, Hannaford served in various roles at Goldman Sachs spanning over 24 years including global head of corporate and operations technology and head of both EMEA technology and quality assurance engineering.
The American Financial Exchange has appointed Kevin Wolf as its chief financial officer. Wolf brings over 20 years of capital markets industry experience. Prior to joining AFX, Wolf held various positions at Euronext, Bank of America, and Lehman Brothers. Most recently, he served as CEO of Euronext FX (previously FastMatch) and chairman of Euronext Markets Singapore PTE, a Euronext FX subsidiary. Wolf also served as chief business and product development officer and head of the NY office for Eris Exchange from 2011 to 2016.
French regulator Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) has appointed Sébastien Raspiller as its new secretary general. In this role, he will be responsible for running and coordinating the AMF’s staff. A career civil servant Raspiller has extensive experience in supervisory roles at the French Treasury. Previous roles with the French Treasury include head of insurance markets and products and of the corporate financing at the Directorate-General of the Treasury. He also served as general secretary of the Interministerial Committee for Industrial Restructuring. Additionally, from 2013 to 2018, he served as deputy assistant secretary and oversaw financial markets and corporate financing.
CME Group has promoted Jorge Alegria to head of Mexico, international markets development for Latin America. Alegria has been with CME for eight years starting on contract as senior advisor to the president, then in international markets development for Latin America and now in his new role as head of Mexico. Prior to joining CME, he spent five years as senior managing director of market operations at the Mexican Stock Exchange Group (Grupo BMV) and 12 years as chief executive of the Mexican Derivatives Exchange. CME has a small but growing business related to peso-denominated interest rate derivatives, including the clearing of interest rate swaps and the recently listed futures on the F-TIEE, Mexico's primary short-term interest rate.
Nasdaq has promoted Patrik Löhr to chief executive of Nasdaq Clearing, its Scandinavian clearinghouse. Löhr previously served as head of clearing risk at Nasdaq. Prior to his time at Nasdaq, he spent four years as head of risk control at Handelsbanken, two years as head of risk monitoring and control at Swedish Export Credit Corporation, and seven years at SEB in various roles including senior risk analyst, head of risk management, and then head of MB and treasury risk control.
R.J. O’Brien & Associates has promoted Matt Heidkamp to executive director and chief operating officer for the US and Gemma Lloyd to chief operating officer, EMEA for its UK subsidiary. Heidkamp brings nearly 29 years of experience at RJO, most recently as senior director of operations. Lloyd began her role as chief commercial officer with RJO Limited at the start of 2023. Prior to joining RJO she served as global head of service delivery and then chief business development officer at G.H. Financials.
SIX has appointed Bjørn Sibbern as global head of exchanges and member of the executive board, starting 1 January 2024. Sibbern is currently executive vice president and president of European markets at Nasdaq and brings over two decades of experience in capital markets. Sibbern has 15 years of experience at Nasdaq in roles including president of Nasdaq OMX Copenhagen, global head of commodity markets and executive VP, head of global information services.
Nasdaq said that Roland Chai who currently leads the company's marketplace technology business, will take over Sibbern's role starting in January. Nasdaq’s European business is mainly in the Nordic region. It operates an exchange and a clearinghouse in Stockholm for products including equities, equity derivatives, bonds and interest rate derivatives.
Geneva Trading has announced the launch of its London office which will be led by Henry Willetts. Willetts brings over 17 years of experience in the energy trading sector, most recently serving as an oil swaps trader at Mandara, a leading global proprietary trading firm based in the UK specialising in whole-barrel oil derivatives according to LinkedIn. At Mandara, he specifically worked in crude, fuel, distillates, gas, naphtha, and propane freight trading. Prior to his time at Mandara, Willetts worked in sales for ICE where he was responsible for sales, marketing and business development.
Will Harbaugh has joined BNY Mellon’s asset servicing business as head of service delivery for the asset owners segment. Harbough makes the move to BNY Mellon after 16 years with JP Morgan. His time with JP Morgan began in futures and options sales with a focus on commodities and progressed to roles including EMEA head of futures and options sales and marketing, global business manager of agency clearing, collateral and execution, and most recently global lead of clearing account management.
In August, the Australian Securities Exchange appointed Andrew Marvin as head of derivatives clearing and clearing risk technology. Prior to joining ASX, Marvin spent 13 years at Commonwealth Bank in roles including global markets program manager, executive manager of risk and regulatory technology, and most recently as executive manager of institutional banking technology.
Clear Street, a prime broker founded in 2018, has appointed John DiBacco as global head of derivatives based in New York. He reports directly to Chris Pento, co-founder and CEO of Clear Street. DiBacco most recently worked as a systematic credit trader at the Chicago Trading Company. Other previous roles include head of client trading at Virtu Financial, global head of equity trading at KCG Holdings and head of equity trading at Global Electronic Trading Company. He also spent 14 years at UBS from 1998 to 2012, ending his time there as managing director and global head of synthetic equity trading. This appointment is one of several that Clear Street has made as the firm prepares to launch a futures clearing service.
Hidden Road, a prime broker that clears crypto and exchange-traded derivatives, has appointed Wieger ten Have as deputy chief compliance officer. Wieger ten Have spent nearly seven years at Flow Traders as a compliance officer and then head of regulatory compliance. He also spent four years at The Order Machine (TOM), a trading venue for financial instruments, where he was responsible for real-time and post-trade surveillance of all order book activity on TOM MTF. Wieger ten Have also spent two years at Bitvavo, a trading platform to buy, sell, and store digital assets, before joining Hidden Road.
Energy and commodity trading company Vitol Group has hired Sebastian Seibers, a former European gas and power analyst for Goldman Sachs. A spokesperson confirmed the hire but declined to provide any further details on the move. Before joining Goldman Sachs in 2020, Seibers was an energy strategist at Millenium, a senior power analyst at Mercuria and VP of power analytics at JP Morgan.
Scila appointed Mikko Andersson as its chief executive officer. He will be responsible for driving growth and innovation of the Swedish fintech company’s market surveillance, risk and AML technology. Andersson joined Scila as chief information officer in February and brings more than 20 years of experience in regulated industries to his new position. In the CIO role, he was responsible for business development and improving product reach. Andersson founded and led several firms before joining Scila, including a software development company, a hedge fund, a proprietary trading firm and an e-pharmacy.
XBTO, a platform for digital assets and crypto investment solutions, has appointed former managing director at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Javier Rodriguez-Alarcon, as chief commercial officer. He will be responsible for driving growth of crypto investment strategies and overseeing all digital commercial and business, product development, solutions and investments management strategies. At GSAM, Rodriguez-Alarcon also served as global head of client portfolio management], as well as the quantitative investment group for EMEA.
