Morgan Stanley loses three in forex and one quant

Morgan Stanley loses four staff in US; Barclays forex head departs; Citadel adds CDS trader; and more

Morgan Stanley has lost four staff in the US

Morgan Stanley has lost three senior people in its foreign exchange business, with Guy Hopkins, Oliver Jerome and Giovanni Pillitteri departing the US bank in December.

Hopkins was head of forex sales for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (Emea), having joined from Bloomberg in May 2008, where he was head of Emea forex trading. He started at Bloomberg in July 2002 as part of the sales team covering buy-side firms, before becoming sales manager for the Netherlands.

Jerome was head of forex and emerging market sales for Emea and the Americas. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley in February 2010, he was head of fixed-income sales for Europe and the Americas at Standard Chartered.

New York-based Pillitteri was global head of forex and interest rates electronic trading at Morgan Stanley. He joined from Citi in 2012, where he had been co-head of forex automatic trading.

Pete Eggleston, head of the quantitative solutions and innovations unit in London, also departed Morgan Stanley in December. Prior to joining the US bank in August 2010, he was head of quant solutions at Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). In between working at Morgan Stanley and RBS, he undertook a six-month internship at the Zoological Society of London.

Barclays' global head of forex and commodities distribution, Jim Iorio, has left the UK bank. He joined in 2008, following its takeover of the US business of Lehman Brothers, where he had been head of forex sales for North America.

Iorio has held various roles at Barclays, starting as head of forex derivatives sales. He then moved to Singapore, where he became head of forex distribution for Asia-Pacific in 2010, returning to New York the following year to become head of forex distribution for the Americas.

Barclays declined to comment.

Tian Zeng has joined Citadel Securities in Chicago as a credit default swap (CDS) index trader, ahead of the launch of its CDS market-making business in the first quarter of this year.

Zeng leaves Citi, where he focused on CDS index trading. He joined the bank in June 2010 as a structured credit trader.

Mike Schmitz has joined Commerzbank as head of institutional sales for forex and derivatives in London. He joins the German bank from Goldman Sachs, where he was co-head of Emea forex sales for continental Europe, central and eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Schmitz will report to Andrew Readinger, global head of institutional sales, and Thomas Deppe, global head of corporate sales.

Financial technology start-up Digital Asset Holdings has hired Chris Church as chief business development officer and Cris Conde as a non-executive director. The pair will join the firm launched by derivatives industry veteran Blythe Masters on March 11.

Church joins from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift), where he was chief executive for the Americas and global head of securities from 2008-15. Conde joins the board after retiring from SunGard as president and chief executive officer in May 2011.

Paul Tucker, former deputy governor of the Bank of England (BoE), has been appointed as chair of the Systemic Risk Council. He succeeds founding chair Sheila Bair, who held the role from 2012 and will now become chair emeritus.

Currently a fellow at Harvard's John F Kennedy School of Government, Tucker was deputy governor of the BoE between 2009 and October 2013. Bair served as chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation from 2006-11.

The Systemic Risk Council was formed as an independent organisation to monitor and encourage regulatory reform of US and global capital markets, with a focus on systemic risk.

Andrea Enria will remain as chair of the European Banking Authority (EBA) until February 2021, following the extension of his mandate.

Enria was appointed as the first chairperson of the regulatory authority on March 1, 2011, two months after its foundation. Prior to the EBA, he was head of the supervisory regulations and policies department at Banca d'Italia.

UK challenger bank Aldermore has appointed Christine Palmer as chief risk officer (CRO) and she will also sit on the executive committee.

Palmer joins from Royal Bank of Scotland, where she was global head of operational risk, functions and divested business, and a director of risk services. Based in London, she will report to chief executive officer Phillip Monks.

Palmer replaces Steve Barry, Aldermore's CRO since 2009, who has left to explore new career opportunities.

Before joining RBS in 2002, Palmer held a consultancy role at Ernst & Young, focusing on credit risk management.