Obituary
Mike Gill, a former official at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, has died, aged 56. Born and raised in St. Louis, Gill’s journey to Washington in 1993 marked the beginning of a distinguished career that saw him navigate through roles in Congressional offices on Capitol Hill and in top advisory roles within the realms of financial services policy. Gill served as the chief of staff to former CFTC Chair Chris Giancarlo before joining the Housing Policy Council in 2021 as senior vice president for capital markets. Those who knew Gill describe him as a doting husband and father who was kind-hearted, genuine, charismatic and generous with his time.
“Mike was a devoted husband and father, a man of faith who thanklessly volunteered for his church and community, and a loyal and devoted friend to so many,” said FIA President and CEO Walt Lukken. “Mike had a disarming smile and was quick to tell humorous stories...and always with a twinkle in his eyes that telegraphed the punchline. Both Mike and my sons attended Gonzaga College High School in Washington DC whose motto is to be 'men for others.' Mike took that to heart in everything he did, including his service to the public and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission”.
People News
Eurex has appointed Robbert Booij as CEO of Eurex Frankfurt beginning 1 July. Booij, who is currently CEO Europe at ABN AMRO Clearing Bank, will succeed Michael Peters who announced his retirement after working for the Deutsche Börse group for more than 30 years. Booij has held various senior positions at ABN AMRO including general manager of the London branch and vice chairman of Europe before taking the CEO Europe position in 2018. He also serves as chair of FIA’s European Advisory Board and is a member of the FIA Global Board. Beyond ABN AMRO, Booij also served as chairman of Eurex’s exchange council from 2019 to 2022.
Mark Ibbotson is stepping down as chair of GH Financials after a decade with the futures broker. He will be succeeded by Jerome Kemp, the former head of futures at JP Morgan and Citigroup, subject to regulatory approval. Ibbotson, who served as chief executive and subsequently as board chair, is leaving to “pursue another opportunity in the market”, according to a statement by the firm. Before joining GHF, Ibbotson spent 23 years with Liffe, lastly as CEO and global head of clearing. He also served on FIA’s board of directors. Kemp spent 18 years at JP Morgan, lastly as co-head of the bank’s global futures business, before joining Citigroup in 2011 as global head of futures, derivatives clearing and FX prime brokerage. From 2018 to 2020 Kemp also served as chair of FIA’s board. He left Citigroup in 2020 and became the president of Baton Systems, a role he left in September last year to become a senior advisor at the fintech.
JP Morgan has promoted Jason Sippel and Pranav Thakur to co-heads of the bank's markets trading business. Sippel, who has been with the bank since 2002, came up through the equities division. In April 2023, he was promoted to global head of equities, global head of credit markets and public finance. Thakur previously was head of macro markets, and before that he oversaw currencies, commodities and emerging markets trading. The pair fill the seats vacated by Troy Rohrbaugh and Marc Badrichani. Rohrbaugh has been promoted to co-chief executive officer of JP Morgan’s newly combined commercial and investment bank, alongside Jennifer Piepszak, who was previously co-CEO of consumer and commercial banking. Badrichani is set to leave after more than 18 years at the bank.
Gary Pettit has joined London brokerage firm Sigma Broking as chief executive officer. He was previously the UK head of ED&F Man Capital Markets, which he left in late 2022. Before ED&F, Pettit was global head of financial futures and options at ICAP, the global head of financial futures and options at MF Global and a futures broker at Credit Agricole. Before that he spent three years on the Liffe floor with Refco and worked as a spot yen broker at Tullett & Tokyo. Pettit joined Sigma Broking as a consultant in January 2023.
R.J O’Brien & Associates has appointed Patrick Christie as senior executive officer and head of Hrvyst, the firm’s agricultural technology business unit. He is based in Minneapolis and reports to CEO Gerald Corcoran. Christie has been a board member at the Plant Pathways Company since 2020 and was president of Conservis Corporation, a provider of farm management software, which he founded in 2009. Earlier in his career, Christie acquired and served as president and CEO of Cybernet Systems, a technology systems integration firm specialising in large-scale data and networking architectures.
Miami International Holdings has appointed Kelly Brown as senior vice president of derivatives products and business development for MIAX Futures, which includes the Minneapolis Grain Exchange. In this newly created position, Brown is responsible for developing and maintaining strategic relationships with futures commission merchants, broker-dealers and clearing members across the global futures industry. Brown joins MIAX after serving as senior principal and head of derivatives at Gemini Trust Company, a cryptocurrency exchange and custodian. He also served as chief commercial officer at FairX and was a managing director at CME Group.
The London Metal Exchange has announced three senior appointments at LME Clear, its clearinghouse division: Chris Jones as chief operating officer, Matt Wade as chief risk officer and Paul Kirkwood as head of clearing risk. All three report to LME Clear CEO Michael Carty and will sit on the LME Clear executive committee. Jones joined LME Clear in 2013 as chief risk officer before becoming the group's chief risk officer in 2017. In his new role as COO, Jones will oversee all LME Clear operations. Wade has been with LME Clear as head of clearing risk for 10 years. Kirkwood succeeds Wade as head of clearing risk and will oversee all first-line clearing risk functions. He was previously LME head of market risk.
The Chinese government has appointed veteran regulator Wu Qing as chair of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, replacing Yi Huiman, who headed the CSRC since 2019. Wu was most recently executive vice-mayor of Shanghai, but earlier in his career he headed the Shanghai Stock Exchange for almost two years and held various roles at the CSRC.
The board of directors of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has appointed Stefan Walter as the authority’s new CEO effective 1 April. He succeeds Urban Angehrn who stepped down from the position last September, and Birgit Rutishauser, who is currently overseeing operations as interim CEO. Walter has served as director general at the European Central Bank since 2014 where he was responsible for horizontal risk supervision as well as developing and conducting stress tests. Before his time at ECB, Walter was the global bank regulatory and supervisory policy network leader at Ernst & Young for two years. He also served as secretary general of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX) said it welcomes the Hong Kong Government’s appointment of Chan Kin-por and Peter Yan, and the re-appointment of Susan Chow, to its board of directors. The terms of the three directors will begin at the conclusion of HKEX’s 2024 Annual General Meeting in April for two years. Laura M Cha and Benjamin Hung will retire from the board after the conclusion of the 2024 AGM.
The Options Clearing Corp. (OCC) has appointed Massimo Cutuli as chief financial risk officer-elect, succeeding Dale Michaels who announced his retirement in March. Cutuli most recently was chief risk officer at Optiver. Before Optiver, Cutuli was the head of risk for Citadel Securities, responsible for risk oversight in North America, EMEA, and APAC. Before Citadel, he worked in banking at JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, spent some time in PWC's finance and risk advisory practice, and was a quantitative developer for Bloomberg.
In other news, OCC, has made changes to its board of directors with OCC CEO Andrej Bolkovic joining the board along with Roland Chai, Nasdaq’s president of European market services. Chai fills the seat vacated by Meyer “Sandy” Frucher, the retired Nasdaq vice chairman.
Technology company Duco has named Michael Chin as CEO. Chin assumes the role from the company’s founder Christian Nentwich, who is stepping down as CEO after 10 years but remains as a board member. Duco was acquired by Nordic Capital in 2021. Chin most recently was the CEO of Broadway Technology, which was acquired by Bloomberg in 2023. Prior to that, he was managing director and global head of trading at Refinitiv, where he oversaw the company’s pre-trade desktop, execution platforms, real-time data, and analytics.
Charles Robson has joined OSTTRA, the post-trade technology joint venture between S&P Global & CME Group, as a senior sales and relationship manager. Prior to joining OSTTRA, Robson held senior positions at CME including senior director of optimization sell side and client development and sales, and senior director of strategic relationship management and client development. Before CME, he held positions at Traiana (now part of OSTTRA), and at SWIFT, a financial messaging security services provider.
Nataliya Manina has joined EDX Markets, a startup exchange for trading cryptocurrencies, as chief compliance officer. Prior to assuming this role, Manina was the chief compliance officer at Cboe Digital, ErisX, and GH Financials, where she led the compliance and anti-money laundering program for highly regulated entities. While at ErisX, she was also the chief regulatory officer and senior legal counsel, managing trade surveillance team and working on federal and state licensing for the firm. Manina also worked as a compliance examiner at CME Group and the National Futures Association and held legal roles at UBS and Drawbridge Lending.
Law firm Skadden has appointed James Danly as a partner and head of the energy regulatory group, based in Washington, D.C. Danly was previously commissioner, chairman and general counsel of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the US government agency that regulates the interstate transmission of electricity, natural gas and oil.
Coinbase has promoted Arthur Feldshteyn to director, FCM and treasury operations, at the company’s futures commission merchant subsidiary. Feldshteyn joined Coinbase in 2022 from Goldman Sachs, where he spent 17 years in various roles related to the bank’s listed and cleared derivatives businesses. Coinbase formed a subsidiary in 2021 to act as an FCM and received approval in 2023 to use that subsidiary to offer clients access to regulated derivatives.
Quantitative Brokers has appointed David Kalita as CEO. He succeeds CEO and co-founder Christian Hauff, who stepped down at year-end 2023 and remains on the board of directors. Kalita joins QB after more than a decade at Bridgewater Associates, where he was most recently head of product management in trading. Before that role, he was head of FX, futures, and equities execution at Bridgewater.
Joe Midmore has joined Cassini, a provider of collateral and margin analytics, as global head of market strategy and sales. Previously, Midmore worked at OpenGamma, a derivatives analytics firm, as chief commercial officer. Before moving into the vendor space, he spent 15 years at Credit Suisse in prime derivatives.
