Obituary
Thomas Cashman, a member of the Chicago Board of Trade for more than 50 years and a member of the FIA Hall of Fame, passed away on 2 May at the age of 87. Cashman was a longtime presence in the Chicago futures markets, spending more than five decades as an independent floor broker and trader in the soybean futures pit at the CBOT, and holding full membership of the exchange for over 60 years. He served on numerous exchange governance committees, including the Floor Governors Committee, the Nominating Committee and the Ethics and Integrity Committee, chairing each of them, and also served on the board of directors during the early 1980s, a period of significant change and growth for the exchange. He was named to the FIA Hall of Fame in 2023.
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The UK government announced that Rachel Blake has been appointed Economic Secretary to the Treasury and City Minister, while Lucy Rigby has been promoted to Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Blake was elected as Member of Parliament for Cities of London and Westminster in 2024 and has now assumed responsibility for financial services policy in her new role. Rigby, who was elected as Member of Parliament for Northampton North in 2024, has previously served as Economic Secretary to the Treasury and solicitor general, and will now oversee public expenditure, including spending reviews and strategic planning.
Chris Woolard has been appointed as the UK government’s wholesale digital markets champion, a newly created role introduced as part of its strategy to support the development of tokenised financial markets. In this part-time role, he will support industry progress on the development of a tokenised wholesale financial markets ecosystem, while continuing in his position as a partner at EY. He previously served as interim chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority in 2020 and as its executive director of strategy and competition. Prior to joining the FCA in 2013, he held roles at Ofcom, the BBC and in the civil service.
The UK Financial Conduct Authority has appointed Jonathan Peddie and Raymond Cox as new members of its Regulatory Decisions Committee, which determines contested enforcement cases. Peddie brings more than 30 years of experience in investigations and enforcement. He is currently executive director, investigations, enforcement and litigation at the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Cox practised as a barrister at Fountain Court Chambers for more than 42 years and was appointed King's Counsel in 2002, specialising in commercial, banking and financial services law. He is an experienced international arbitrator and, in 2025, was appointed a senior decision-maker for the Guernsey Financial Services Commission.
The FCA also made two permanent appointments to its executive team. Simon Walls has been appointed executive director of markets, having held the role on an interim basis since 2024. Walls joined the FCA in 2006 and has held senior roles across wholesale markets, including policy, asset management and banking supervision. Johan Sekora has been appointed chief operating officer, relocating to London from Stockholm to take up the role in June. Sekora was previously global head of financial crime prevention at SEB and brings more than 25 years of experience in financial services.
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has appointed DJ Hennes as director of the agency's Market Participants Division, which oversees intermediaries such as commodity pool operators, commodity trading advisors, futures commission merchants, introducing brokers, major swap participants, retail foreign exchange dealers, and swap dealers. Hennes joins the CFTC from KPMG, where he was a managing director in the firm’s Financial Services Risk & Compliance Advisory Practice. Prior to joining KPMG, he spent 15 years at Promontory Financial Group, a Washington-based consulting firm, most recently leading its capital markets practice for the Americas.
The CFTC also appointed Raagnee Beri as director of its Whistleblower Office, which provides monetary incentives to individuals who report possible violations of the Commodity Exchange Act. Beri succeeded Brian Young, who was named director of the agency's Enforcement Division in February 2025. Beri previously served as a trial attorney in the Enforcement Division and as senior assistant general counsel in the Litigation Branch of the Office of the General Counsel. Prior to joining the CFTC, she was a trial attorney at the Department of Justice Tax Division.
ASX has appointed Anthony Attia as managing director and chief executive officer, effective 1 September 2026. He will replace Helen Lofthouse, whose departure was announced in February. Attia brings close to three decades of exchange experience spanning European and US jurisdictions. He joins from Euronext where he most recently served as global head of derivatives and post-trade, having previously held the roles of chief executive officer of Euronext Paris and member of the managing board from 2014 to 2021. Darren Yip, ASX's head of markets and listings, will lead the organisation on an interim basis until Attia joins in September.
SGX Group has announced a management reorganisation to strengthen its technology and operations strategy. Tinku Gupta, who has been with SGX since 1996, will step down as the group's chief information officer. She has spent nearly three decades with the organisation, holding senior leadership roles across business, technology and operations. Nick Sawyer has been appointed chief information officer designate, reporting to Loh Boon Chai, the CEO. He will assume the role of CIO from 1 July, leading SGX’s technology strategy and overseeing platform resilience and architecture, proprietary technology and IP, cybersecurity and disciplined change delivery. Lester Ngoh has been appointed head of exchange operations designate, reporting to the CEO. He will formally take on the role from 1 July, with responsibility for operational performance, service quality and delivery, custody modernisation and the development of exchange data as an enterprisewide value engine.
The New Zealand Exchange has appointed Graham Law as acting chief executive officer, succeeding Mark Peterson, who stepped down on 30 April. Law previously served as the exchange's chief financial and corporate officer. Law joined NZX in 2017 and has experience across the financial and professional services sectors in New Zealand and the UK. He previously worked as head of finance at the Accident Compensation Corporation and, prior to that, as managing director and chief financial officer at AMP Capital.
Michael Voisin has been appointed non-executive director of ICE Clear Europe. Voisin recently retired as a partner in Linklaters’ capital markets practice where he worked for 30 years. During his tenure at Linklaters, he led the firm’s derivatives and structured products practice, served as global head of capital markets and held the role of global knowledge and learning partner. He was also a member of the FIA board from 2016 to 2026.
The London Metal Exchange has announced that John Williamson will continue in his role as chairman of the board, following the completion of his initial term. He was first appointed in 2021. Williamson spent more than 13 years at Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, lastly serving as senior adviser to the board.
Simon Parsons has joined LME Group as chief financial officer, succeeding Tabitha Silverwood, who left the group after 12 years. Parsons has joined from HSBC, where he spent 16 years in a range of senior finance leadership roles, most recently as group head of financial planning and analysis. In addition, MiRan Park has been appointed chief business officer in a newly created role. Park has more than 20 years of experience across data, analytics and benchmarks, most recently serving as managing director at S&P Global, where she has led cross-divisional partnership strategy and ecosystem relationships. She previously held senior business development roles at S&P Global and its predecessor Markit, which she joined in 2003.
Former CFTC chairman Christopher Giancarlo has joined Patomak Global Partners as senior strategic adviser. Giancarlo served as the 13th CFTC chairman from 2017 to 2019, after being appointed commissioner in 2014. During his tenure, he oversaw the launch of the first regulated market for Bitcoin derivatives. Prior to his government service, he spent 13 years as executive vice president at GFI Group. He is a co-founder and chairman of the Digital Dollar Project and currently serves as a director of Nomura Holdings, Digital Asset Holdings and Paxos Trust Company.
Julie Bauer has joined Cboe Global Markets as senior vice president and head of government relations. She succeeds Angelo Evangelou, who has retired from his role as chief policy officer. Bauer was previously at OCC, where she served as chief external relations officer. Prior to this, she held senior government relations roles at FINRA and led government relations at the Chicago Board of Trade.
Flow Traders has appointed Frank Drouet as chief executive officer for Asia-Pacific and member of the firm's executive committee. Drouet spent more than 30 years at Société Générale in various global and regional leadership positions, including global head of volatility trading, head of equities and derivatives for Asia-Pacific and head of global markets. More recently, he served as deputy head of global markets at Crédit Agricole. He has spent 20 years in Hong Kong and Tokyo. As part of the updated Asia-Pacific leadership structure, Fabian Rijlaarsdam has been appointed chief operating officer for the region, a newly created role. Ken Han, who currently serves as head of institutional sales and trading for Asia-Pacific, has been appointed chief commercial officer.
Jonathan Carter has joined FIA Tech as chief product officer in a newly created role, based in London. Carter joins from Goldman Sachs, where he spent 24 years across prime services and global markets engineering functions, including listed and over-the-counter derivatives, margin, prime clearing and securities lending. In his most recent role as managing director, he led listed and OTC derivatives clearing engineering, margin engineering and clearing house data engineering, with a focus on optimising post-trade processing and client experience.
Trading Technologies has appointed Josh Monroe as chief revenue officer. He succeeds Nick Garrow, who previously served as chief revenue officer and has been promoted to chief strategy officer, a newly created position within the firm. New York-based Monroe previously served as chief revenue officer at Duco, an AI-powered data automation provider, and in the same role at Xceptor. Prior to that, he was managing director, head of Americas at Itiviti, now part of Broadridge.
BMLL has appointed Deyan Kolev as head of corporate development and partnerships. Kolev joins the executive management team, reporting to chief executive officer Paul Humphrey, and brings experience in corporate strategy and development from previous roles at Tradeweb, Informa, Euronext and NYSE.
BMLL has also made a number of senior hires across its go-to-market team. Mo Badlani has joined as senior sales director for hedge funds in the US. He previously worked at Lightkeeper and has extensive experience across both the buy and sell sides, with previous roles at Eze Software, Enfusion, Société Générale and UBS. Nick Haydon has been appointed senior sales director for enterprise, bringing experience of sales, account management and business development from the London Stock Exchange Group, FIS and Thomson Reuters. In addition, Mariel Solomon has joined as head of revenue operations, after holding senior business operations roles at LogicMonitor and Moody's Analytics.
Lawrence Tanzman has joined Optiver as a quantitative trader, based in Chicago. Tanzman spent 14 years at Citadel Securities, where he most recently served as a trader covering market making and equity options. He began his career at Allstate Insurance in a fixed income research role.
Lara Shevchenko has also joined Optiver in a corporate strategy role, covering market structure and government relations. Shevchenko joins from the European Principal Traders Association, where she has served as senior policy advisor for market structure. Prior to this, she worked as a legal consultant at a global investment firm and securities dealer via Linklaters.
Clear Street has confirmed the appointment of Alex Lawton as chief executive officer of its UK subsidiary, following approval by the Financial Conduct Authority. Lawton joined the firm's UK management team in December 2025. He replaces Jacinda Fahey, who stepped down in March. Lawton most recently served as head of global markets and head of the London branch at State Street Bank International. During his time at State Street, he also served as a member of the Bank of England's Money Markets Committee. Earlier in his career, he was head of equity finance and prime services for EMEA at Barclays Investment Bank and head of prime brokerage for EMEA at Bank of America.
Carol Wooding has joined Patomak Global Partners as a senior consultant, bringing more than 40 years of experience in derivatives markets. Wooding most recently served as general counsel at the National Futures Association. Prior to assuming that role, she led the NFA's regulatory development efforts.
StoneX has promoted Eric Rose to global head of StoneX Digital. Rose previously served as head of digital asset execution at the firm, a role he held since joining in 2023. Prior to StoneX, he spent nearly seven years at Cowen, most recently as managing director and head of execution at Cowen Digital, having earlier led the firm's equity derivatives trading desk. He also spent nearly nine years as managing director of equity derivatives trading at Jefferies.
Travis McGhee has left Crypto.com, where he most recently served as executive vice president and global head of capital markets. During his time at the firm, he also held roles as managing director and global head of capital markets, and as chief executive officer of Crypto.com’s derivatives business in North America, overseeing the firm’s expansion in regulated on-exchange products. Prior to joining Crypto.com, McGhee served as chief commercial officer at Nadex.
Renato Lima has joined technology vendor Pirum as chief revenue officer, leading the firm's global revenue operations across EMEA, North America and Asia-Pacific. Lima joins from FIS, where he spent nearly nine years as senior vice president, head of sales for capital markets, leading international sales teams around the world. Prior to that, he spent nearly 15 years at Bloomberg, culminating in his role as the European head of enterprise solutions. He previously served as Bloomberg’s European head of global data.
Jayesh Patel has joined Crossover Markets, a crypto trading venue, as global head of markets. Patel previously spent nearly 14 years at Euronext FX, where he held a number of senior roles including head of product, head of liquidity management for the Americas, and director of sales for the Americas. Crossover was in the FIA’s Innovators Pavilion in 2023 and recently raised capital from Tradeweb and several other firms.
