FXall hires marketers from former rival Atriax

Two former employees of defunct multi-bank FX tradingportal Atriax were last week hired by rival portal FXall. Keith Hill joins FXall in London as head of Europe, Middle East and Africa sales, while Michelle Bachmann-Love was made head of North America sales, based in New York.

Hill, who was head of relationship management for the Americas at Atriax, is now on his third portal, having joined Atriax from Currenex in September 2001. At Currenex he was director of sales, having left a sales job at JPMorgan in May 2000.

Bachmann-Love was in sales and relationship management at Atriax. She has also worked at JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank in sales. At FXall, Hill and Bachmann-Love report to Mark Warms, chief marketing officer.

Warms said the appointments had been made in response to increased customer uptake at FXall. “To keep this momentum going, we are now strengthening the sales infrastructure with these new key appointments,” he claimed.

Hill and Bachmann-Love join three other ex-Atriax staffers on the FXall payroll, although a spokesperson for FXall in London declined to give details of their names or roles. Currenex, meanwhile, does not employ any former Atriax employees, a spokesperson said.

Few of Atriax’s former 84 employees have remained in the multi-bank FX area – most left the industry following the portal’s closure in April. Some have returned to traditional banking roles. David Reid, formerly seniorrelationship manager for Atriax’s bank board, having joined Atriax from ANZ Investment Bank, now works for AIG Trading in London. There, he joined former Atriax chief operating officer John Wareham, who joined AIG as global head of FX last November ahead of Atriax’s collapse.

Others have re-joined the wider technology vendor market, including Atriax chief technology officer Stephen Epstein. Epstein, who had been seconded to the portal from one of its four owners, Deutsche Bank, has since resurfacedat Bang Networks, a real-time messaging firm.

But the whereabouts of Atriax chief executive Dan Morehead, a former global FX options chief at Deustche Bank, remain unknown, according to market participants.