People: HSBC’s Karl joins Isda

OCC names new chief information officer; Nex nabs JP Morgan’s Americas head of derivatives clearing

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association has appointed Ulrich Karl as head of clearing services, a newly created position.

Karl joins from HSBC, where he most recently served as co-head of central counterparty (CCP) risk. While at HSBC, Karl served as the industry chair for Isda’s clearing, risk and capital working group. HSBC’s CCP risk team will now be led by Karl’s former co-head, Lucy Hammond.

In his previous role, Karl reported to Nazir Badat, chief operating officer of global markets. He joined the bank in 2006, after leaving Landesbank Hessen Thüringen in London.
Karl will be in charge of Isda’s clearing initiatives, reporting to Mark Gheerbrant, head of risk and capital. He will be based in London.

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UBS has hired Ryan Gould to serve as global head of its central risk book within its equities division. Gould joins from Citi, where he previously worked as a quantitative analyst in derivatives trading. In his most recent role, he reported to Peter Lambrakis, head of equities trading for the Americas, and was based in New York.

Gould now reports to Gary Head, global head of cash equities. He will remain in New York.

Gould has replaced Paul Jefferys, who left for hedge fund Citadel in April. Jefferys will work in a newly created trading role at Citadel, reporting to Mark Holder, global head of trading. He is based in Chicago.

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Deutsche Bank has appointed James von Moltke as chief financial officer. Previously treasurer at Citi, in charge of managing its capital, funding, liquidity and interest rate risk, he will assume his new responsibilities in July.

He replaces Marcus Schenck, who was promoted to co-president in March. Schenck will look after Deutsche’s new corporate and investment bank alongside Garth Ritchie.

Von Moltke joined Citi in 2009 as head of corporate mergers and acquisitions. Three years later, he became global head of financial planning and analysis and in 2015 was given the role of treasurer. He will be based in Frankfurt.

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Citi has appointed Joe Bonocore and Loretta Moseman as interim co-heads of treasury, Bloomberg reported.

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David Slater, Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s (BAML) former global head of inflation trading, has joined Trium Capital, an asset management firm, as a portfolio manager. He will be in charge of implementing a discretionary macro-strategy.

Slater left BAML in 2015, having joined in 2010. Before BAML, he was co-head of inflation trading for Europe and Asia at BNP Paribas.

Based in London, he now reports to Neh Thaker, co-head of global structured rates trading.

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There have been a number of moves at Nex Group. Samantha Wren has been appointed group chief financial officer, replacing Stuart Bridges, whose departure is due to take place later this year. Bridges became group chief financial officer in 2015.

Wren’s previous role was chief commercial officer for Nex Markets. She will also join the board of directors.

Wren joined Nex (then Icap) in 2009 as group treasurer, and has held a number of senior roles, including chief financial officer and chief operating officer of the global broking division.

Before joining Nex, she spent 14 years at UK-based gaming company Rank Group. She has been a non-executive director of City of London Investment Trust, where she chairs the audit committee, since 2015.

Ken Pigaga, Nex’s global chief operating officer, has joined the board. He assumed his current role in 2013, and joined the company in 2006 as chief operating officer for the Americas. His appointment to the board is attributed to recognition of his role in leading Nex’s restructure.

London-based Wren and Pigaga report to Michael Spencer, group chief executive.

Andres Choussy has joined Nex Optimisation as head of trade and portfolio management solutions.

He previously worked for JP Morgan, most recently as head of derivatives clearing in the Americas, and will be based in New York, reporting to Jenny Knott, chief executive of Nex Optimisation.

Choussy held a number of senior roles at JP Morgan, including global co-head of over-the-counter derivatives clearing and global head of foreign exchange prime brokerage. After his departure, Paul Davidson succeeded him as head of derivatives clearing in Americas. Davidson is based in New York, reporting to Nick Rustad, global head of clearing.

Colin Murphy has joined as chief commercial officer of Nex Optimisation. He will also act as head of sales for Nex regulatory reporting. His most recent position was head of sales trading at Goldman Sachs in London, covering equities and fixed income products, with a focus on hedge fund clients. He will be based in London.

Murphy also reports to Knott, and Collin Coleman, head of Nex regulatory reporting.   

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Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) has appointed Trevor Spanner and Richard Leung as chief information officer and deputy chief information officer, respectively. The exchange has also created a new IT and platform development division aimed at facilitating the group-wide oversight of IT management and platform development at HKEX and its subsidiaries.

Spanner’s previous role was chief operating officer and group risk officer. He will retain the latter position on an interim basis until a suitable successor is appointed. As part of his new role, he will be in charge of the new IT and platform development division. Spanner will report to HKEX’s chief executive, Charles Li.

Leung, who was co-head of IT before the new appointment, will support Spanner in his role as head of the IT and platform development division. In his capacity as deputy chief information officer, he will report to Spanner. In addition to that, he will become chief technology officer for Hong Kong, replacing recently retired Bill Chow.

Spanner and Leung are based in Hong Kong.

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Isabel Mahony, former co-head of investment-grade credit trading at Morgan Stanley in London, has joined SMBC Nikko Capital Markets, a subsidiary of Sumitomo Mitsui. Her new role with the Japanese investment bank is head of fixed-income sales and trading.

Mahony left Morgan Stanley at the beginning of 2016 after spending nearly seven years at the bank. She joined Morgan Stanley from RBS in 2009. She is based in London.

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AcadiaSoft has hired Fred Dassori as head of risk products and corporate development. Dassori’s previous role was chief executive of Wake USA, a joint venture between Credit Suisse and Tower Research Capital, offering electronic trading of treasuries, bonds and futures. Previously, he served as head of automated rates trading at Credit Suisse.

Dassori will oversee external growth strategies and lead AcadiaSoft’s risk business line. He will be based in New York and reports to chief executive Chris Walsh.

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David Hoag

The Options Clearing Corporation (OCC) has hired David Hoag as chief information officer. He succeeds Luke Moranda, who moved into a new role of senior information technology adviser to John Davidson, OCC’s president and chief operating officer.

Before joining the clearing organisation, Hoag worked as chief technology officer for Halo Investing, a company that offers a trading platform with pre-defined market returns for investors. Prior to that, Hoag was chief technology officer for NextTier Education, a web and mobile platform that provides databases of post-secondary education information in the US.

Hoag also spent 11 years with CME Group, most recently in charge of its information technology development teams, overseeing its clearing and settlement activities.

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Hotspot, a foreign exchange-trading subsidiary of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), has appointed Jon Weinberg as head of foreign exchange liquidity analysis.

In this newly created role, Weinberg will be responsible for developing data analytics for Hotspot’s participants.

Prior to Hotspot, he served as head of liquidity management within the forex trading division of UBS. His position still hasn’t been filled.

Weinberg will be based in London and reports to Bryan Harkins, head of US equities and global forex at CBOE.

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Rajat Somany has joined Wolters Kluwer’s finance, risk and reporting business in a newly created role as global head of strategy, product and platform management.

He will oversee strategy, product management and platform profitability of the division. The business line Somany joined provides governance, risk and compliance-related services to legal, finance, risk and compliance professionals as well as small business owners.

He spent the past 12 years in a number of senior roles at Citi, which included global head of pricing and client profitability and chief operating officer for Asia-Pacific. Most recently, he led client lifecycle management.

He is based in London, reporting to Clive Pedder, head of Wolters Kluwer’s finance, risk and reporting business.

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Urs Beeler

Swiss exchange operator Six has appointed Urs Beeler to its board of directors. Beeler is currently head of sales and trading at Credit Suisse, which he joined in 1997. He has held a number of roles there, including head of fixed income trading for Switzerland followed by head of trading for Switzerland.

From 2013 until his appointment to the board of directors, Beeler was also a member of the regulatory board of Six exchange regulation. Board members report to Romeo Lacher, president of the board of directors.

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Axioma, a market risk and portfolio management service provider, has hired Mark Traudt as head of product engineering, a newly created position. He will oversee fintech innovation as well as being in charge of developing new products and services.

Traudt joins Axioma from risk analytics firm Quantifi where he worked as chief technology officer, a role that he assumed in 2003. He was responsible for Quantifi Risk, the firm’s risk management tool.

Before that, he was vice-president of global equity derivatives at Goldman Sachs.

He will report to Ian Webster, Axioma’s chief operating officer. Traudt will be based in New York.

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Starling, a behavioural analytics technology start-up in the regtech space has added Martin Wheatley to its advisory board. Wheatley is a former chief executive of the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Prior to that, he also served as chief executive of the Hong Kong securities and futures commission for five years.

Wheatley joined the FCA’s predecessor, the Financial Services Authority, in 2011 to help revamp the regulatory body. He became chief executive of the FCA in 2013 and stood down from his role two years later, succeeded by Tracey McDermott. Prior to becoming a regulator, Wheatley spent 18 years with the London Stock Exchange, his most recent position there being deputy chief executive.

Wheatley’s appointment follows a move by another senior regulator, Rick Ketchum, formerly chairman and chief executive of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra), who joined Starling’s advisory board in January 2017.

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Clarus Financial Technology, a company that provides data, research and analytics for derivatives markets, has appointed Mark Bell as head of its Apac business. Bell’s appointment to this newly created role is related to the company’s expansion, as it previously operated its Apac business from Europe.

Before joining Clarus, Bell spent nine years with Calypso Technology in a number of different roles. Most recently he was in charge of the business in South-East Asia and India. Prior to that, he was overseeing the business in China and worked as head of clearing for Apac.

He will report to Amir Khwaja, chief executive of Clarus and will be based in Singapore.