People moves: SocGen changes at the top, new global markets head at HSBC, compliance switch at Natixis, and more

Latest job changes across the industry

Jean-François Mazaud: new head of group transformation at SocGen

Following a difficult fourth quarter, Societe Generale has made some changes to its top ranks, including replacing the head of its global markets business unit. Jean-François Grégoire takes over the position from Frank Drouet, who, according to a company statement, “will pursue new opportunities” after 30 years in the group’s market activities. Grégoire previously served as the group’s deputy chief risk officer, and now reports to Séverin Cabannes, SocGen’s deputy chief executive officer of global banking.

The bank has also appointed Jean-François Mazaud as head of group transformation – a new role, according to the release, which involves overseeing the bank’s recent savings plan. He will report to the general management of the firm, a group comprising the chief executive and several deputy chiefs. Prior to the appointment, Mazaud was head of the firm’s wealth and asset management business unit. That post is being taken by Patrick Folléa, who will also report to Cabannes. Folléa was previously deputy head of private banking and has worked at SocGen for more than 10 years.

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Georges Elhedery will become head of global markets at HSBC in March. Elhedery, who has been based in Dubai in his capacity as chief executive for the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey, will relocate to London for his new job. He will take over from Thierry Roland, head of global banking and markets for Europe, who has acted as interim head of global markets since September. Elhedery began working at HSBC in 2005 and held positions at BNP Paribas and Goldman Sachs prior to that. He will continue to report to Samir Assaf, HSBC’s group managing director and chief executive for global banking and markets.

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Alain Bruneau

At Natixis, Alain Bruneau has been chosen as global head of compliance, taking over from Stéphane Morin, who will become deputy chief executive of corporate and investment banking for the Americas. Both will take up their new posts in mid-March.

Bruneau, who will have a seat on the executive committee, will oversee the firm’s relationships with regulators as well as supervising its IT systems. He previously served as head of compliance, corporate and investment banking and will now report to André-Jean Olivier, Natixis’s general secretary. Prior to joining Natixis, Bruneau held positions at Exane BNP Paribas, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank.

Morin’s new role will also involve oversight of compliance as well as legal risk and regulatory affairs. He will also report to Olivier, as well as to Pierre Debray, chief risk officer. Morin has been Natixis’s global head of compliance since 2015. Before joining in the 2003, he worked at Banque Fédérale des Banques Populaires.

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Natixis has also named Marc Mourre as its new executive chairman of global markets commodities; Claude Lixi will assume Mourre’s previous post as global head of global markets commodities. Mourre will report to Dominique Frasse, the firm’s global head of energy and natural resources in its corporate and investment banking division. Lixi reports to Mourre as well as Luc Francois, head of global markets. Lixi was most recently global head of trading for global markets commodities, and prior to joining Natixis held positions at BP and Morgan Stanley.

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Konstantin Shakhnovich, co-head of engineering for Goldman Sachs’ securities arm, is retiring. He will be replaced by Adam Korn, who also heads Goldman’s Marquee service. His new role will also involve oversight of systematic market-making for equities.

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Steven Harker and Margie Seale have been named to the board of Westpac as independent, non-executive directors. They will also join the board risk and compliance committee. The appointments are effective from March 1.

Harker served as managing director and chief executive of Morgan Stanley Australia from 1998 to 2016 and was vice-chairman until this month. Before joining Morgan Stanley, he worked at the Barclays Investment Bank precursor, Barclays de Zoete Wedd, for 15 years.

Seale has previously worked in publishing as managing director of Random House Australia and holds several other non-executive positions.

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Kimberly Evans

Northern Trust has appointed Kimberly Evans as its new head of private capital fund administration for North America. Evans has worked for Northern Trust since 2010, and in her new role will be responsible for alternative assets in the region. She previously held positions at First Chicago Bank and LaSalle Bank.

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Also at Northern Trust, Paul Fyda has been hired as head of local markets for its global foreign exchange business. Fyda, based in New York, now works on foreign exchange in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region. He will also advise the firm’s institutional clients. Prior to his appointment, Fyda worked at Brown Brothers Harriman & Company.

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A new chief risk officer has been appointed at Rokos Capital Management following the exit of Nick Howard. Gianluca Squassi, former CRO and CEO of the hedge fund LindenGrove Capital, is Howard’s replacement. Rokos investors were informed of Howard’s decision to leave for personal reasons in the third quarter of 2018. Squassi resigned from LindenGrove in early February, and Risk.net is told the fund is in the process of shutting down. Howard joined Rokos in 2014 following 16 years at Barclays. His new occupation, per his LinkedIn profile, is “relaxing”.

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Jemma Clee

Jemma Clee is JP Morgan Asset Management’s new head of investment specialists for global liquidity in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. She joins from Goldman Sachs Asset Management, where she worked for 14 years. Now based in London, Clee reports to Ted Ufferfilge, managing director and global head of investment specialists for the global liquidity arm. Clee will work on fixed income products for corporates.

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Wells Fargo Asset Management has appointed Matthias Scheiber as global head of multi-asset portfolio management, a newly created role. Scheiber, who is based in London, is new to the firm and will report to Dan Morris, head of multi-asset solutions. Before the move to Wells Fargo, Scheiber worked at Schroders on its multi-asset team. Morris also previously worked for Schroders and joined Wells in 2017.

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Also at Wells’s asset management arm, Hannah Skeates has been named global head of environmental, social and governance. She will oversee social ethics in the US bank’s asset management arm and its investment teams, also working with the wealth and investment management division. She will be based in London and report to Fredrik Axsater, the asset management arm’s head of strategic business segments.

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Akiyoshi Nagashima

Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management has made Akiyoshi Nagashima its new chief investment officer, a role that includes responsibility for product development. Nagashima, who is also managing executive officer at the firm, has worked in its various divisions for more than 30 years, beginning his career in 1986 at Sumitomo Trust & Banking. He is based in Tokyo.

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Raymond Yin has assumed the helm of the Asia-Pacific region at UBS Asset Management. He takes over from his former boss Rene Buehlmann, who is taking a sabbatical and will eventually return to UBS in a new role. Yin is also head of UBS’s ‘China Onshore’ effort, overseeing the firm’s operations there. Yin will report to Ulrich Koerner, president of UBS Asset Management and UBS Group Europe, Middle East and Africa. Yin will also join UBS Asset Management’s executive committee, and remain based in Shanghai. Before joining UBS, he served as chief executive of Chongyang International Asset Management, and prior to that worked at Goldman Sachs.

Digital Asset Holdings is set to lose its head of Europe. Gavin Wells will depart the fintech firm in March, a spokesperson confirmed. Wells, who joined in 2016 after several years working at LCH, will be replaced in a client-facing capacity by Oliver-Hugh Jones, Digital Asset Management’s head of business development for Europe. He has no immediate career plans. Wells’s departure is the third in recent months for Digital Asset Management, which saw the exits of CEO Blythe Masters in December 2018 and CTO James Powell in January this year. The firm has hired Zohar Hod, the former chief executive of data firm truePTS, as its new chief strategy officer.

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Corentine Poilvet-Clediere

LCH has appointed Corentine Poilvet-Clediere as new head of its RepoClear and collateral management services. Poilvet-Clediere, who is based in Paris, previously served as global head of regulatory strategy at the London Stock Exchange Group. She also held positions at EY Financial Services and BNP Paribas. She reports to Bruce Kellaway, LCH’s global head of RepoClear and collateral, and Christophe Hémon, chief executive of LCH SA.

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James Parker has been hired in the new role of chief risk officer at Global Prime Partners. Previously, Parker was European head of prime brokerage risk management at Societe Generale, and held other roles at JP Morgan and Lehman Brothers. He will report to Todd Johnson, who was recently appointed chief operating officer.

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Shard Capital Commodities has added London-based Ashley Boolell to its team of partners. Before joining Shard, Boolell worked in commodity derivatives at Investam Capital. Prior to that, he spent 11 years at Natixis, where he was also involved in commodity derivatives.

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Luisa Gómez Bravo

After 20 years at BBVA, Luisa Gómez Bravo has been named the firm’s new global head of corporate and investment banking. She has previously served as global head of asset management, global head of investor and shareholder relations and chief operating officer for Spain. Most recently, she worked as the bank’s global head of investment and cost management. She will now report directly to Onur Genç, chief executive of BBVA.

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Cashplus, the prepaid credit card company, has made Aris Asimakis its chief risk officer, a newly created role. Asimakis most recently worked in risk management and regulatory compliance at Vanquis Bank and has held positions at the Prudential Regulatory Authority and Tesco Bank.

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Simon Puleston Jones has resigned as head of Europe for the Futures Industry Association. According to a LinkedIn update, Puleston Jones left the firm “in order to pursue an exciting opportunity outside of financial services and the legal profession”. His profile lists him as founder and chief executive of Yopo, a “new global social network for individuals, nonprofits and companies who want to give back and make a positive difference to others”. The acronym stands for “YOur POtential.” The group is currently seeking investors and partners.  

FIA’s senior vice-president for global communications, Emma Davey, will serve as interim head of Europe while the organisation seeks a permanent replacement. Puleston Jones previously served as a director at Barclays Investment Bank and worked as a solicitor.

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The Financial Conduct Authority has appointed Wanda Goldwag chair of its independent financial services consumer panel. Goldwag will oversee the consumer protection and advocacy work of the panel and represent it to the agency at large. She replaces Sue Lewis, who chaired the panel for more than five years. Goldwag is also chair of the Office for Legal Complaints and a non-executive director at the Royal Free London NHS trust. She will take up her new job on March 1.

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In more regulatory news, the European Banking Authority’s board of supervisors has nominated José Manuel Campa, global head of regulatory affairs at Santander, as chairperson of the authority. His appointment is subject to the approval of the European Parliament, and if successful, he would succeed Andrea Enria. Prior to becoming EBA chair, Enria was head of bank supervision at the Bank of Italy.

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Grovetta Gardineer

The US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has named a new senior deputy comptroller for bank supervision policy, Grovetta Gardineer. She replaces Grace Dailey, who is retiring on March 2. Gardineer joined the regulator in 2010 and has served as senior deputy comptroller for compliance and community affairs since 2016. She will now oversee the supervision of national banks as well as policies on consumer issues and money laundering. She will remain based in Washington. Dailey is stepping down after 36 years at the agency.

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Embattled lender Metro Bank is hiring. The challenger bank is seeking a new operational resilience risk oversight lead. The position was advertised on January 24 – the day after the bank revealed it had misclassified billions of pounds in loans. The incident has prompted Metro Bank to raise fresh capital, and led to significant drops in its share price. It has not yet seen departures from its management team – though board member Howard Flight is also stepping down in April, and Michael Snyder will take over as senior independent director and chair of the audit committee.