Verena Ross has been selected as the new chair of the European Securities and Markets Authority, following a vote by the European Parliament. She will take up the position from 1 November. Ross previously held the number-two post at ESMA as executive director, stepping down in May after serving the maximum 10 years allowed. Ross will be the first female chair of the authority and will lead a two-women team at the top, alongside executive director Natasha Cazenave.
Dan Berkovitz will be reunited with Gary Gensler at the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Gensler, the SEC's chairman, has tapped Berkovitz to be the agency's general counsel starting on 1 November. Berkovitz served as general counsel of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 2009 to 2013 when Gensler was the CFTC's chairman. He subsequently went into private practice and rejoined the CFTC as a commissioner in August 2018. John Coates, who was only recently appointed the SEC’s general counsel in 2021, will leave the agency in October and return to teaching at Harvard University.
Katharine Braddick, HM Treasury's director-general for financial services, is reportedly set to join Barclays as its director of policy. She has served as director-general at Treasury since 2016. A spokesperson for Barclays did not comment.
The White House has announced that President Biden will nominate Rostin Behnam to serve as permanent chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Behnam has been serving as a CFTC commissioner since September 2017 and as acting chairman since January. Once confirmed, he will have the full authority of his office and more ability to set the policy agenda for the CFTC. In addition, President Biden announced his intent to nominate two other Democrats to the CFTC: Kristin Johnson, a professor of law at Emory University School of Law, and Christy Goldsmith Romero, the presidentially appointed special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program and an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center and University of Virginia Law School. Johnson is an expert on financial markets regulation and corporate governance, compliance, and risk management. Goldsmith Romero previously worked at the Securities and Exchange Commission as counsel to SEC chairs Mary Schapiro and Christopher Cox. She also served as senior counsel in the SEC’s Enforcement Division.
Martin Pluves, the former CEO at LCH Ltd, has been appointed as an external member of the Bank of England's Financial Market Infrastructure board, the executive body with oversight over the central bank’s financial market infrastructure policy and supervision. Pluves was previously chief executive officer of the Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities Markets Standards Board. Prior to that, he was chief executive of LCH Ltd for five years.
Cboe Global Markets CEO Edward Tilly has been named chairman of the World Federation of Exchanges for a two-year term. Tilly previously served as vice chairman of the WFE from 2018 to 2021. He replaces Urs Rüegsegger, chairman of SIX Swiss Exchange.
WFE also named 10 new directors to its board, including Boon Chye Loh, CEO of Singapore Exchange, as its vice chairman and Jos Dijsselhof, CEO of SIX Group, as its working committee chairman. Both will also serve two-year terms.
The European Commission's Directorate for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union (DG FISMA) has appointed Raffaella Assetta to replace Petr Wagner as head of unit for international affairs. Assetta had been covering the role in an acting capacity.
The CFTC's Division of Market Oversight Director Dorothy DeWitt has stepped down from her role. DeWitt has led the division since joining the agency in September 2019. Meghan Tente, associate director of the Office of International Affairs, will serve as the DMO’s acting director.
Brevan Howard Asset Management will launch a new digital asset unit that will be led by Colleen Sullivan, the former chief executive and co-founder of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology firm CMT Digital. Sullivan will be tasked with turning BH Digital into a key player for servicing professional investors in digital assets as well as leading the fund’s private and venture investment activities in crypto. She will also chair the investment committee of a new strategy that will focus on disruptive technologies in the asset class.
Equity derivatives clearinghouse OCC has announced two new members of its board of directors: Mike Nowak, chief financial officer at ABN AMRO Clearing Chicago, and Rob Hocking, senior vice president and head of multi-asset solutions and derivatives strategy at Cboe Global Markets.
Bart Solleveld was recently promoted to chief operations officer Europe at ABN AMRO Clearing and Hayley Rogers was promoted to head of clearing operations UK. Solleveld was previously head of Treasury, Europe and Rogers was previously manager, trade processing and control.
Sharon Bains-Kler has joined Bank of America's London office as a director in listed derivatives electronic execution. She previously worked at Credit Suisse as EMEA head of listed derivatives electronic execution sales. Earlier in her career, she worked at Nasdaq, Morgan Stanley and Barclays.
Société Générale Securities Services has appointed Gildas Le Treut and Alexandra Chauvel as co-directors of coverage, marketing and solutions reporting to David Abitbol, head of Société Générale Securities Services. They replace Christophe Baurand, who left the bank. Le Treut joined SGSS as head of sales and relationship management in 2018 after 11 years at ABN Amro Clearing. Chauvel was previously transformation leader for SGSS on the clients value chain.
Ryan Sheftel has been named chief executive officer of Radkl, a new digital asset investment and proprietary trading firm formed by partners of GTS, the New York-based quantitative trading firm. Sheftel, a partner at GTS, will continue to oversee the firm's FICC businesses. Before joining GTS in 2015, he was global head of rates quantitative automated trading at Credit Suisse. He also previously worked at Citadel, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers.
Sylvie Renaud-Calmel has rejoined Citi from Société Générale as head of markets for the bank's European investment bank. Renaud-Calmel is based in Paris and reports to Leo Arduini, the EMEA head of markets, and Kristine Braden, chief executive of Citigroup Global Markets Europe. At Société Générale she was a senior risk consultant for three years. Before that, she worked at Citi for 12 years in various trading roles.
Montreal Exchange has promoted Alexandre Prince to senior product manager, responsible for the development of the exchange's interest rate derivatives product suite. Prince, who joined the exchange in 2011, previously was a senior advisor for several initiatives related to fixed income.
Glenn Goucher, the former president of the Canadian Derivatives Clearing Corporation, is serving as an executive advisor to Tetra Trust Company, the first digital asset custodian licensed in Canada. Goucher was the head of the CDCC for 10 years and before that was a senior executive at the Montreal Exchange.
Finbarr Hutcheson has joined digital asset exchange Coinbase as a strategic advisor. He most recently served as chief executive officer at ICE Clear Europe. Prior to joining ICE Clear, Hutcheson spent nearly four years as president of ICE Benchmark Administration and two years as chief executive officer of NYSE LIFFE.
Interactive Brokers has announced that Cecelia Zhong has joined the firm as executive director, focusing on business development for Greater China. She will report to David Friedland, managing director of Asia Pacific operations, and will be based in Hong Kong. Prior to joining Interactive Brokers, she served as CEO of a Hong Kong-based fintech company and held positions with NYSE Euronext and Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing.
UBS has appointed Bogdan Gogu as head of UBS Next, its $200 million fund for equity investments in early-stage fintech companies. Gogu previously was head of strategic investments for BNP Paribas. In that role, he represented the bank on the boards of several fintech companies, including AcadiaSoft, CurveGlobal, Digital Asset and Symphony. Before that he worked in the strategic investments team at Morgan Stanley. UBS Next was formed in October 2020 and has made investments in venture capital firm Anthemis, blockchain developer ConsenSys, and digital wealth platform Endowus.
Richard Fearn, managing director in Goldman Sachs' futures and options business and member of FIA's Europe Advisory Board, has relocated from London to Paris.
COEX Partners, the agency execution arm of TP ICAP, has hired Matthew Guadagno as managing director. He joined the company from Nasdaq, where he was head of fixed income sales. Before that, he worked at UBS, GFI Group, and Javelin Capital Markets.
Baton Systems, a technology firm specializing in clearing and settlement services, has announced the appointment of Jerome Kemp as the company’s president. Kemp has been working as a senior advisor to the firm for the past 10 months and will work closely with Baton founder and CEO Arjun Jayaram. Prior to joining Baton, Kemp was global head of futures, OTC clearing and FX prime brokerage at Citi, a role he left last year after nine years with the bank. He was also chair of the FIA board from 2018 to 2020.
Broadridge has hired Mike Johnson as vice president, global product manager of derivatives clearing. Johnson joins with over 30 years of experience in financial services, including 15 years in the exchange-traded derivative space and more than 10 years of experience in repo trading.
The National Futures Association, the self-regulatory body for the US derivatives industry, has promoted Ed Dasso to senior vice president of market regulation and Mike Otten to senior vice president of OTC derivatives. Both were previously vice presidents.
Michael O’Brien, an expert on trading issues in derivatives markets, has joined Artisan Partners, a Wisconsin-based investment manager with more than $175 billion under management, as head of global trading for emerging markets debt. He previously served as director of global trading at Eaton Vance, which was acquired by Morgan Stanley last year.
Eventus Systems has announced a series of key hires in Europe, including adding Ollie Cadman as its chief product officer, and David Griffiths and Martin Appiah who will both serve as directors of regulatory affairs. Based in Stockholm, Cadman reports to Eventus CEO Travis Schwab, while Griffiths and Appiah will be located in the UK and report to Joseph Schifano, the firm’s global head of regulatory affairs. Cadman previously served at Intercontinental Exchange, the London Stock Exchange Group, Morningstar and JP Morgan. Most recently, he served as chief product officer at Vela Trading Systems. Prior to joining Eventus, Griffiths was head of trade surveillance for SteelEye, and previously held senior roles at JP Morgan, Standard Chartered and Oracle Mantas. Appiah most recently served as compliance surveillance subject matter expert at Royal Bank of Canada and as compliance surveillance officer for Nomura International.
Ant Ludlow has joined Talos, a technology provider that supports the institutional trading of digital assets, as its head of product design. Ludlow is a digital product leader with over 20 years of experience. He joins Talos from Bullet, a London-based product design firm, and has previous experience designing technology solutions for firms including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Tradeweb and MarketAxess.
Lee Brenner has been appointed head of public policy for digital assets at Goldman Sachs. He is based in Washington, DC. He most recently helped lead global public policy and external affairs for Facebook Financial.
