People moves: Credit Suisse reshuffles, CME continues rejig, and more

Latest job changes across the industry

Credit Suisse announced the departure of its chief financial officer (CFO), David Mathers, and a slew of other senior managers, two days before its April 29 annual general meeting (AGM).

Mathers is the latest top executive to leave the bank since it was burned by the collapses of Archegos Capital Management and Greensill Capital last year.

In addition to his role as CFO, Mathers was also chief executive of Credit Suisse International, the UK-based swap dealer entity that housed the trades with Archegos at the time of its collapse.

An independent report into the Archegos episode, by law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, criticised the bank’s reliance on “double-hatting” – where senior executives had multiple roles and responsibilities – although it did not explicitly blame top management for the losses. However, an article published by Risk.net on April 26 – the day before Credit Suisse announced Mathers’ departure – raised questions about the scope of the Paul Weiss report. At the April 29 AGM, Credit Suisse shareholders voted against a motion to discharge management from liabilities for both the 2020 and 2021 financial years.

Credit Suisse conducted a review of double-hatted senior positions in light of the Paul Weiss report’s findings. It is unclear if Mathers’ dual roles will be split in future. In the press release announcing Mathers’ departure, Credit Suisse said it had launched an internal and external search “to find the optimal candidates for the two roles”.

The bank also announced that it has hired Francesca McDonagh from the Bank of Ireland, where she was chief executive officer (CEO). McDonagh will join Credit Suisse by October 1, 2022, as CEO for Europe, Middle East and Africa (Emea), taking over from Francesco De Ferrari, CEO of the bank’s wealth management division, who has held this position on an interim basis since the start of the year.

The management reshuffle also saw the departure of Helman Sitohang, CEO of the Asia-Pacific (Apac) region, along with group general counsel Romeo Cerutti, who is retiring.

Cerutti will be replaced by Markus Diethelm, who is set to join Credit Suisse as its new general counsel on July 1 this year. He was previously general counsel at UBS from 2014 to 2021.

Credit Suisse did not announce a direct replacement for Sitohang. However, Edwin Low, currently co-head of investment banking in the Apac region, will replace him on Credit Suisse’s executive board, reporting directly to the bank’s CEO, Thomas Gottstein.

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CME has announced further changes to its senior management team after it went through a reshuffle in March.

William Knottenbelt, who was head of international, is leaving the exchange after 11 years. Following his retirement, several positions have been created with the aim of enhancing the futures exchange’s approach across various regions.

Michel Everaert

Photo: CME Group

Michel Everaert has been appointed managing director and head of Emea. In this newly created role, he will move from his current position as managing director and co-head of client development and sales for Emea. Serge Marston will take on Everaert’s previous role, this time as managing director and sole head of client development and sales for Emea. Marston joined CME in 2018 after the exchange had acquired NEX Group. Before that, he worked for Deutsche Bank, where he held various roles, including global head of e-commerce sales.

Russell Beattie, who was formerly head of Apac derivatives indexes for MSCI, joined the exchange in May as managing director and head of the Apac region. He took over from Chris Fix, who has retired. Fix had been at the exchange for nearly seven years and was previously chief executive of the Dubai Mercantile Exchange. Before that, he had spent 20 years at BNP Paribas in various roles, including head of marketing of commodity futures for Asia.

Both Everaert and Beattie will report to Derek Sammann, senior managing director and global head of commodities, options and international markets.

Elsewhere, Chris Povey has joined the exchange’s foreign exchange team as executive director, and will be responsible for overseeing the development of the group’s listed FX options business. Povey is a former trader at NatWest Markets, where he traded euros, sterling, Swiss francs and Scandinavian over-the-counter FX options books. Povey will report to Paul Houston, global head of FX.

Nick Gant has joined CME’s fixed income platform, BrokerTec. As director of BrokerTec Products, he will be based in London, reporting to Kate Karimson, executive director and head of European repo and BrokerTec Quote. Gant was previously head of sales, repo and money markets at broker TFSEdge.

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Lee Smallwood has joined crypto investment firm Hivemind Capital Partners as managing partner and chief operating officer. Smallwood, who was previously Citi’s chief operating officer for the North American markets, left the bank after a six-year stint, during which he was also co-head of rates digital assets – a team set up last year to provide rates services to new digital-native clients. Hivemind was established by another former Citi executive, Matt Zhang. Before his time at Citi, Smallwood co-founded Gradible, a student loan fintech start-up.

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BNP Paribas Asset Management has appointed Olivier Laplénie its head of quantitative portfolio management. Laplénie will remain as head of quantitative fixed income, a role he has held since January 2014. He will be based in Paris, and report to Denis Panel, head of multi-asset, quantitative and solutions. Laplénie was previously head of model-driven investment within the firm’s alternative fixed income team.

The firm’s exchange-traded funds (ETF) sales team has also made two appointments: Benjamin Ertler as senior sales manager; and Martin Walentowitz as sales manager. Both will be based in Frankfurt, reporting to Claus Hecher, head of business development for ETF and index solutions in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland.

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Laimonas Staskus has left BlackRock, where he was director of equities trading for Emea, and has taken on an index rebalancing role at hedge fund Millennium. Staskus spent seven years at BlackRock, and was previously assistant vice-president for Japan and Asian equities trading at Barclays Capital.

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Xavier Roux

Crédit Agricole CIB has appointed Xavier Roux its chief representative officer for Indonesia. Based in Jakarta, he will report to Michael Roy, senior regional officer for Apac. Roux will be responsible for developing the bank’s relationship with clients in the area and scouting out business opportunities. Roux has been with the bank for several years in roles such as chief executive of Hong Kong and head of corporate and specialised finance for the Apac region.

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HSBC Asset Management has made a series of appointments to its new listed infrastructure equity team following the launch of its first global listed infrastructure equity fund. The team will be led by Giuseppe Corona, head of listed infrastructure equity and will report to Joanna Munro, chief executive officer of HSBC Alternatives. The team will be based in both London and Sydney. The new members of the London team are: managing principals Antonio Barbera and Andy Jones; Michel Debs, who joins as a principal; and investment specialist Jessica Nguy. The Sydney team’s new members are Joseph Titmus, managing principal; and Xueting Zhang, senior analyst. All of the newly appointed staff are former members of Sydney-based AMP Capital’s listed infrastructure equity team.

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Michael Held is to step down in June from his position as general counsel and head of the legal group at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Until a successor has been named, deputy general counsels YoonHi Greene and James Bergin will lead the group. During his tenure, Held has been a member of the bank’s executive committee, and was deputy general counsel of the Federal Open Market Committee. He joined the bank in 1998 as a staff attorney, and went on to be its corporate secretary and deputy general counsel in its legal group.

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The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has created two new director roles to enhance its authorisation process for firms that are looking to engage in regulated financial activities. Laura Dawes joins as director of authorisation, having been interim director of strategy, policy, international and intelligence in the FCA’s enforcement and market oversight division. She was previously head of retail and regulatory investigations, and worked as a barrister before joining the regulator.

L to R: Laura Dawes and Dominic Cashman

Dominic Cashman is the other newly appointed director of authorisation. He was previously head of integration and transformation at interdealer broker TP ICAP, and, between 2014 and 2017, head of regulatory operations at Nomura.

Craig Chapman has been appointed FCA finance director, following the retirement of David Godfrey. Chapman was previously chief financial officer at fintech RTX Routetrader, and has held senior finance roles at commodities trader ED&F Man and Barclays Capital.

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Jessica Reyes has been made director of asset management regulation at French financial regulator AMF. Moving from her role as senior policy officer at the regulatory policy and international affairs directorate, Reyes took on the role on March 1. She reports to Jérôme Reboul, managing director, and Frédéric Pelèse, deputy executive director. Reyes represents the AMF on the European Securities and Markets Authority’s investment management standing committee. Before joining AMF, she was senior inspector of large asset managers at the UK’s FCA, and held roles at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management in Sydney and at UBS Wealth Management.

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Asset manager PineBridge has hired Vladimir Zdorovenin as head of insurance solutions for Emea. Based in London, he will report to Luke Schlafly, global head of insurance investment solutions. Zdorovenin was part of the international insurance solutions group at Apollo Global Management. Before that, he was an executive director at JP Morgan Asset Management, where he led institutional strategy and analytics for Japan and Australia.

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Greville Lucking has been appointed as chief executive at AxeTrading. Lucking has been at the fixed income trading software company since 2018, and was previously head of customer support and integration. Prior to joining AxeTrading, he was chief operations officer at EMBonds before the firm was acquired by BGC Partners.

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Tiff Macklem

Tiff Macklem, governor of the Bank of Canada, has been appointed as chair of the group of governors and heads of supervision at the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. He has taken over the role on the committee’s oversight body from François Villeroy de Galhau, governor of the Bank of France, who was appointed in January as chair of the board of directors at the Bank for International Settlements. Villeroy de Galhau had held the Basel Committee position since November 2019.

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Hong Kong-based asset manager Value Partners Group has hired David Townsend as managing director of its Emea business. Responsible for leading the London office, he will report to group president June Wong. Townsend was previously head of investor relations at Alderwood Capital and head of Emea institutional at First Eagle Investments.

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The Managed Funds Association is to open an office in Brussels, its first outside the US. Taggart Davis has been appointed to lead the office as managing director and head of European Union government affairs. Before joining the alternative investment industry association, he was JP Morgan’s executive director for government relations, based in Brussels, and was previously vice-chair of the board of directors at the American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union. Davis will report to Jillien Flores, the MFA’s executive vice-president and managing director, head of global government affairs.

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Haney Saadah

Law firm Norton Rose Fulbright has appointed Haney Saadah its head of risk consulting for Emea. In his previous role at Addleshaw Goddard, Saadah was head of regulatory risk and compliance. He has also held positions at EY’s Emea risk division and BlackRock’s Emea compliance team. Based in London, he will report to Jonathan Herbst, global head of financial services.

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Mark Spiers has rejoined Bovill as a partner. Spiers had been part of the financial consultancy’s leadership team from 2013 to 2019, when he oversaw the banking, investment management and lending teams. He is now leading the wealth and financial crime practices, and has rejoined the executive committee. Before his initial spell at Bovill, Spiers was a money laundering reporting officer at UBS and head of compliance at Kleinwort Benson. His most recent role was as a director in PwC’s asset and wealth management advisory practice.

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Financial crime advisory firm K2 Integrity has named Thomas Bock its global head of financial crimes risk management. Jennifer Law will take over from Bock as chief operating officer, having previously worked as controller for ARK Investment Management. Chip Poncy has been promoted to become K2 Integrity’s global head of financial integrity.

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ORX, the association for operational risk professionals, has made a series of promotions. Luke Carrivick has become deputy executive director, after previously being director of research and information. Steve Bishop has been promoted, from head of risk information programmes and insurance, to director of research and information. In a newly created role, Giuseppe Aloi moves from leading the ORX Scenarios service to head of member engagement and new business development. Simon Johnson, previously research manager at the association, takes on Aloi’s former responsibilities as ORX Scenarios senior manager.