The French government appointed Robert Ophèle, a career central bank official, as chairman of Autorité des Marchés Financiers. He replaced Gérard Rameix, whose term expired in July. Ophèle began working at the Banque de France in 1981 and has held a number of roles in banking supervision, market operations, payments and internal management positions, culminating with his appointment as second deputy governor in January 2012. Since January 2014 he also has been a member of the supervisory board of the European Central Bank's single supervisory mechanism, which oversees banking supervision within the European Union.
The European Securities and Markets Authority in July appointed Giuseppe Vegas, the chairman of Italy’s Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa, to serve on its management board. He replaced Gérard Rameix, who stepped down from his position as chairman of France’s Autorité des Marchés Financiers in July. The ESMA board is chaired by Steven Maijoor and includes representatives from six European countries.
U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Phillip Hammond in July appointed veteran U.K. Treasury official David Ramsden as deputy governor of the Bank of England. He will serve as deputy governor of markets and banking, with responsibilities for managing the central bank's balance sheet and the execution of financial stability and monetary policy decisions. He also will be a member of the Prudential Regulation Committee, which governs the Prudential Regulatory Authority. Ramsden, a life-long civil servant who rose through the ranks of the Treasury to become its most senior economist, replaced Charlotte Hogg, who resigned earlier this year.
On Aug. 3, the Senate confirmed the nominations of Brian Quintenz and Rostin "Russ" Behnam to fill two vacancies at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The Senate also confirmed the nomination of Chris Giancarlo to serve as CFTC chairman. Giancarlo had been serving as a CFTC commissioner since June 2014 and as acting chairman since January. Quintenz, a Republican, was sworn into office on Aug. 15 for a term ending in April 2020. Earlier in his career he worked in Congress as a legislative aide to Representative Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio). He then moved to the private sector and worked at several investment banks. Most recently he ran an investment fund that was registered with the CFTC as a commodity pool operator. Behnam, a Democrat, spent six years working for the Senate Agriculture Committee as an aide to Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), the most senior Democrat on the committee. Earlier in his career he practiced law in New York and worked at the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. He was sworn into office on Sept. 6 for a term expiring in June 2021.
President Donald Trump nominated Randal Quarles, a former U.S. Treasury Department official, to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. If confirmed by the Senate, he would fill one of three vacant seats at the Fed and would be the Fed's first vice chairman of supervision, a position that was established after the financial crisis but never filled. Quarles, a former partner at the law firm of Davis Polk and Wardwell, worked in the Treasury Department during the administration of George W. Bush as undersecretary for domestic finance and assistant secretary for international affairs. He also served as an executive director at the IMF. After leaving office in 2006, he became a partner at the private equity firm Carlyle, then went on to found a private equity firm in Salt Lake City
On Aug. 3, the Senate confirmed several nominations to the Treasury Department, including David Malpass to be undersecretary for international affairs and Christopher Campbell to be assistant secretary for financial institutions. Malpass is a former chief economist at Bear Stearns and served as a deputy assistant secretary in the Treasury and State departments during the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Campbell is a former congressional aide who worked as a staffer on the Senate Finance Committee and legislative director to Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).
The European Securities and Markets Authority appointed Fabrizio Planta as head of its markets department. He is responsible for ESMA's work on regulatory issues such as EMIR, benchmarks regulation, market abuse and MiFID/MiFIR. He is also in charge of leading the work on CCP colleges, stress testing, reference data and data reporting to regulators and trade repositories. Planta has been acting head since Rodrigo Buenaventura left in March to become director general of the markets unit at the Spanish regulatory agency CNMV.
President Donald Trump has nominated two people—one Republican and one Democrat—to serve on the Securities and Exchange Commission. If the Senate confirms the nominations, the SEC will have all five seats filled. Hester Peirce, the Republican nominee, was a staffer at the Senate Banking Committee when it was chaired by Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.). Before that she worked at the SEC as counsel to Commissioner Paul Atkins. She is currently the director of the Financial Markets Working Group at George Mason University's Mercatus Center. Robert Jackson, the Democratic nominee, is a professor at Columbia Law School and the director of the school's program on corporate law and policy. He served as a senior adviser at the Treasury Department during the crisis, working with Kenneth Feinberg on executive pay rules.
In related news, the SEC announced two senior appointments at the end of August. Dalia Blass was appointed director of the agency's investment management division. Blass worked in the division until September 2016, then moved to the law firm of Ropes and Gray. She replaced David Grim, who is leaving the SEC after 22 years of service. The SEC also announced that Jeffrey Harris, a finance professor at American University’s business school, was appointed director of the division of economic and risk analysis. He was the chief economist at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 2007 to 2010, and was a visiting scholar at the SEC from 1999 to 2000. Harris replaced Mark Flannery who left the agency to return to teaching.
The SEC also announced the appointment of several advisers to SEC Chairman Jay Clayton. They include Jeffrey Dinwoodie, a lawyer at Davis Polk and Wardwell, who will advise the chairman on matters relating to trading and markets, municipal securities, credit ratings and other matters, and Alan Cohen, an executive at Goldman Sachs, who will advise the chairman on emerging risks and regulatory developments, including the impact of Brexit, new European Union regulations, and issues related to domestic and international clearing and settlement of securities and derivatives transactions.
Innovate Finance, a London-based association that supports fintech, appointed Charlotte Crosswell (pictured) as interim chief executive officer after Lawrence Wintermeyer stepped down from the position. Crosswell was formerly the CEO of NLX, the fixed income futures exchange established by Nasdaq. She is also an advisor to several startups and has served as a non-executive director of TheCityUK, an association for the financial services industry in the U.K.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission appointed Bruce Tuckman, a finance professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, as the agency’s chief economist. He replaced Sayee Srinivasan, who has been serving as chief economist since December 2013 and will remain with the CFTC as special advisor in the chairman’s office. Tuckman worked in the prime services and fixed income divisions of Barclays Capital and Lehman Brothers before joining NYU Stern in 2012. His recent writings have focused on financial markets policy, including the role of derivatives during the crisis and the post-crisis regulation of derivatives. He is also the author of a leading textbook on fixed income markets.
The CFTC also appointed Daniel Gorfine to serve as chief innovation officer, a newly created position, and director of LabCFTC, a new program intended to promote technological innovation in derivatives markets by providing a point of contact for fintech innovators and to help the CFTC adopt new technologies. Before joining the CFTC, Gorfine worked at OnDeck, an online lending platform for small businesses, where he was vice president for external affairs and associate general counsel. He also served as adjunct professor of law at the Georgetown University Law School, where he taught fintech law and policy. Earlier in his career, he was director of financial markets policy and legal counsel at the Milken Institute.
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the self-regulatory arm of the U.S. securities industry, promoted Susan Schroeder to executive vice president and head of enforcement. In addition, Finra said it will consolidate its existing enforcement functions into a new, unified enforcement group led by Schroeder. Schroeder joined Finra in 2011 and previously was deputy head of enforcement.
Citigroup hired Sabrina Wilson as global head of electronic and algorithmic trading for listed derivatives, and regional head of futures, clearing and collateral for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. She previously worked at Deutsche Bank as global head of electronic and algorithmic trading and EMEA head of listed derivatives and markets clearing business. Wilson is based in London and reports to Jerome Kemp, global head of futures, clearing and collateral, and Chris Cox, EMEA head of prime, futures and securities services.
Citi also hired Jason Massey as head of sales for futures, clearing and collateral in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Massey joined Citi from Morgan Stanley, where he was an executive director focusing on listed derivatives sales for Europe. He will report to Danny Caplan, EMEA head of sales for prime, futures and securities services, and will work closely with Wilson and Chris Stone, EMEA head of sales for futures execution.
Société Générale announced that John O'Hara (pictured), global head of FX prime brokerage, will also serve as head of prime brokerage clearing for the Americas, which includes futures and OTC derivatives clearing. He is based in New York and reports regionally to Antoine Babule, head of prime services for the Americas, and globally to Frederic Colette, global head of prime brokerage clearing. O'Hara joined Société Générale from Credit Suisse in January 2016 and was promoted to global head of FX prime brokerage and FX clearing several months later.
J.P. Morgan promoted Brett Redfearn to head of market structure in its global markets division. He previously was head of equity market structure strategy.
Intercontinental Exchange announced several changes to senior management in London. Stuart Williams, currently the chief operating officer of ICE Futures Europe, will succeed David Peniket as president of ICE Futures Europe. Peniket, who has been running the exchange since it was acquired by ICE in 2002, is planning to retire. ICE also announced that Timothy Bowler was appointed president of ICE Benchmark Administration. Bowler joined IBA from Goldman Sachs, where he was a managing director in the financial institutions group. Before that he worked on capital markets policy issues at the U.S. Treasury Department for four years. Bowler's appointment allows Finbarr Hutcheson, currently the head of IBA, to move across to ICE Clear Europe and replace Paul Swann as the president of the clearinghouse. That move was announced in February when Swann said he planned to retire, but was delayed pending the appointment of a new head of IBA.
The London Stock Exchange promoted Jonathan Jachym to country head for the U.S. In addition to overseeing LSG Group's operations in the U.S., he will continue to head North America regulatory strategy and government relations. He replaced Ali Hackett who left the company in July to join Thesys Techologies, a company that specializes in low-latency trading and market connectivity solutions.
RCM Alternatives, one of the largest introducing brokers in the U.S., agreed to a partnership with Wedbush Securities under which two executives in Wedbush's futures business, Tom Anderson and Tom Chlada, moved to RCM to help expand the relationship between the two firms. Anderson and Chlada previously led Wedbush's efforts to provide clearing services to professional traders
DRW hired Adam Garner as global head of fixed income options. He joined the firm from Citadel, where he was a portfolio manager specializing in macroeconomic interest rate strategies. Prior to Citadel, he worked at Brevan Howard and Credit Suisse First Boston.
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing in June appointed Roland Chai as chief operating officer of its clearing division and head of clearing risk solutions. HKEX said both positions are newly created to reflect its commitment to be the "risk management center for China-related assets." Chai reports to Calvin Tai, joint chief operating officer of the overall company and head of clearing. Chai joined HKEX from LCH, where he had been head of equities for the past seven years.
OCC, the U.S. derivatives clearinghouse, appointed Amy McCormick (pictured), formerly with the National Futures Association, as first vice president, financial risk management. She reports to Dale Michaels, executive vice president for financial risk management. At NFA, McCormick managed a program to overhaul the self-regulatory agency's clearing risk management systems. Earlier in her career she worked at CME Group as an executive director in risk management.
Cinnober appointed Mattias Granlund as deputy chief technology officer. The company said he would work closely with Peter Lenti, co-founder and CTO of Cinnober, on the company's long-term technical strategy in addition to driving product development. Prior to joining Cinnober, he was team lead for consumer identification at Klarna, a Swedish ecommerce company.
Man Group announced several changes to senior management at Man AHL, its systematic trading division. Antoine Forterre and Matthew Sargaison have been promoted to co-chief executive officers. They were previously the chief operating officer and chief investment officer, respectively. They take over from Sandy Rattray, who remains the chief investment officer of the parent company. Nick Granger will replace Sargaison as CIO and Kate Straker will replace Forterre as COO. Tim Wong continues in his role as executive chairman of Man AHL and chairman of Man Group Asia.
Jim Moran retired after 39 years at CME Group. Moran worked for many years in CME's market regulation division. He also has been an active member of FIA’s Law & Compliance Division and Operations Americas Division, contributing valuable work on issues including proposed Regulation AT as well as working with the industry on the implementation of various CME Group rules.
Umesh Gajria, formerly an executive director in business development at CME Group, joined Bloomberg as head of enterprise products strategy and partnerships.
Phillip Capital Inc., a Chicago-based futures commission merchant and broker dealer, hired Steve Kosanovich as vice president of business development. Prior to joining Phillip Capital, he was vice president of sales for Enyx FPGA. Kosanovich brings 25 years of business development, trading, market structure and agency execution experience. He will be responsible for new business development and sales.
IN MEMORIAM
FIA regrets to report that former Singapore Exchange CEO and Nasdaq OMX Group President Magnus Bocker (pictured) passed away from cancer just short of his 56th birthday. Bocker started his career at the Swedish exchange OMX in 1986 and became the exchange’s chief executive in 2003. He played a central role in the sale of OMX to Nasdaq in 2008, then moved to Singapore and led SGX from 2009 until June 2015.
FIA regrets to report that Yossi Beinart, former chief executive officer of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, passed away at the age of 61. Beinart was named as CEO of the Tel Aviv exchange in 2013 and served for three years before he was forced to step down because of illness. Before joining TASE, he was CEO of the North American Derivatives Exchange for six years.
FIA regrest to report that Robert Wilmouth, the first president and chief executive officer of the National Futures Association, passed away in early September. Wilmouth, a banking industry executive with roots in Chicago, was president of the Chicago Board of Trade from 1977 to 1982. He then served as head of NFA from its founding in 1982 to 2003. He was inducted into the FIA Futures Hall of Fame in 2005.
FIA regrets to report that Leslie Rosenthal, one of the pioneering leaders of the U.S. futures industry, passed away on Sept. 16. He became a member of the Chicago Board of Trade in 1958 and served for two terms as its chairman. He founded his own brokerage firm in 1970 and merged it with another firm in 1988 to form Rosenthal Collins, one of the leading independent non-bank FCMs in the U.S. Rosenthal was an early and vocal proponent of electronic trading and was inducted into the FIA Futures Hall of Fame in 2005.
