People moves: BAML makes changes in derivatives clearing, Mattatia joins MSCI, RBS hires new CRO, and more

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has made several senior appointments in its futures and options and over-the-counter clearing team, according to an internal memo.

Emma West has been named head of futures and options and OTC clearing for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (Emea). She was previously head of marketing for Emea F&O, OTC clearing and forex prime brokerage.

The marketing, execution, collateral, solutions, product and risk teams in the region will report to her. She will report to Dean Tonkin, head of global futures, options, OTC clearing and forex prime brokerage.

West takes over from Brooks Stevens, who moves to a newly created senior relationship management role, focusing on key European clients. He will continue to report to Tonkin.

Rajeev Kumar will take on West’s former head of Emea marketing role, reporting to her.

The changes reflect the bank’s commitment to streamlining the organisation, development and internal mobility, it said in the memo.

Over the summer, BAML has also been hiring in its Emea equities team, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Martin Gupta has been appointed managing director and head of Emea equity structuring and financing origination and structuring. He will start in mid-September and was formerly at Morgan Stanley.

Christian Treuer joined as a managing director and head of equity derivatives sales in early August, from Barclays. Sabine Roeder came on board at the end of July as managing director, equity derivatives structuring, from Deutsche Bank, and Geoffroy Houlot has been hired as managing director, portfolio risk trading, from Fenician Capital Management.

The bank has also hired four directors and two vice-presidents in Emea equities, the source said.

Equity derivatives structurer Stephane Mattatia has joined MSCI in London as head of index products for Europe, Middle East and Africa, and global head of thematic index products.

Mattatia had been due to join the equity derivatives division of BNP Paribas in August after leaving his role as global head of products strategy for equities and derivatives at SG Corporate & Investment Banking (SG CIB) in April – a move Risk.net reported at the time.

He began his new role at index provider MSCI in July. It’s not known what prompted the change of plan. A spokesperson for BNP Paribas declined to comment.

A spokesperson for MSCI confirmed Mattatia’s appointment and said he is reporting to Diana Tidd, head of index.

Mattatia’s decision to leave banking and join MSCI comes as index providers seek to capitalise on a growing trend from active to passive management, ramping up efforts to develop ever-more innovative investment themes and alternative benchmarks that aim to replicate hedge fund strategies in a systematic and cost-effective manner.

In its 2017 asset and wealth management study, PwC forecast that global assets under management are set to double by 2025 to $145.4 trillion, with passive investments also increasing their market share from 17% to 25%.

MSCI has $12 trillion in equity assets benchmarked to its products globally and its indexes represent the underlying for around 1,000 exchange-traded funds.

The company’s thematic benchmarks, which Mattatia will be responsible for, include agriculture and food chain indexes, commodity producers indexes and broader economic investment indexes that identify trends influencing markets.

During 13 years at SG, Mattatia devised a range of hedging strategies and investable index products aimed at buy-side firms, in particular hedge funds. His earliest innovations included the bank’s Symphony range – a skew-based trade comprising a series of cliquet options that left investors long the best and worst performers and short the median in a basket of stocks.

Mattatia also led the development of the first exchange-traded funds linked to dividend derivatives, as well as a dynamic volatility allocation strategies. His final project at SG saw Mattatia work alongside Martin Ford, an author and specialist on artificial intelligence and robotics, and independent index provider Solactive for the bank’s Rise of the Robots index.

Mattatia joined SG in 2005 after almost seven years at the French Ministry of Industry. He initially worked in the pricing and structuring team but was promoted to global head of engineering in the global equity flow division in 2009. In 2014 he took on a cross-asset role, becoming global head of the macro group, before taking on his final position in 2017.

Royal Bank of Scotland has appointed Vanessa Bailey as chief risk officer (CRO) of its ring-fenced bank, it said in an announcement. She will be based in London.

Bailey was formerly interim chief risk officer, NatWest Markets, and assumed her new position on August 20. She will report to group chief risk officer Bruce Fletcher, and Ross McEwan, the chief executive of NatWest Holdings. The new role will also see her joining the NatWest Holdings executive committee and chairing the NatWest Holdings risk executive committee.

Jeremy Arnold has been hired as CRO for NatWest Markets and will report to Fletcher and the division’s chief executive Chris Marks. Arnold is joining from Nomura, where he is currently CRO for Emea, and has more than 25 years’ trading and risk experience. He is due to start his new role on September 3 and will also be based in London.

Deirdre Dunn has been named head of North America markets and securities services at Citi, according to an internal note. She will take on all regional markets responsibilities in addition to her duties as head of North America G10 rates.

Dunn joined Citi in 2011 as head of the mortgage TBA trading desk, and was then promoted to the US head of rates sales in 2013. She has most recently been running North America G10 rates including sales, trading and structuring. Before Citi, she held several jobs in North American and European rate and mortgage trading at Barclays Capital, Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs.

Chris Marsh, co-head of Credit Suisse’s cash execution services and an algorithmic trading veteran, left the bank in August, according to a source familiar with the matter. Credit Suisse declined to comment.

US Bank has named Jodi Richard as its new vice-chairman and chief risk officer, succeeding Bill Parker, who will retire in the Autumn, it said in a statement.

Richard will take up the role on October 1. Based in Minneapolis, she will also join the firm’s managing committee and report to Andy Cecere, chairman, president and CEO of US Bank.

Richard is currently the company’s chief operational risk officer, overseeing op risk management and independent testing functions. Previously she spent more than a decade at HSBC in various positions related to risk management and regulatory compliance.

BNP Paribas has named Viktor Hjort global head of credit strategy and desk analysts, it said in a statement.

Hjort will report to Arne Groes, global head of primary and credit markets, and Olivia Frieser, global head of research, global markets, and will be based in London.

Previously Hjort worked at Brevan Howard, where he served as chief global credit strategist. He formerly spent 15 years handling credit strategy at Morgan Stanley, firstly in London, then serving as head of Asia fixed-income research and credit strategy in Hong Kong.

Justin Brickwood is joining Barclays as head of markets innovation, a spokesperson confirms.

He is due to start at Barclays in September, and will be based in London, reporting to John Stecher, chief innovation officer.

In the newly created role, Brickwood will be in charge of client-focused innovation across the bank’s markets electronic services business, as well as boosting efficiency of internal platforms.

He will work with colleagues across markets and technology, including Nas Al-Khudairi, who oversees the markets electronic trading platform, Asita Anche, head of markets quantitative e-trading and data science, and Brett Tejpaul, head of digital and client strategy.

Previously Brickwood was at Goldman Sachs for more than 20 years, where he most recently served as head of Emea equities electronic trading engineering as part of the equities execution services desk.

Dean Galligan has taken up a new role at Barclays as head of cross-asset solutions structuring, a spokesperson confirms. He is based in London and reports to Santosh Nabar, a managing director.

Galligan is one of a number of strategic hires Barclays is making to help bolster its institutional relationships in the UK and Europe, the spokesperson says. Previously he was a managing director at Goldman Sachs, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Barclays also recently announced it had named Fabio Mader as London-based global head of G10 foreign exchange trading and distribution.

Mader will lead the global forex business across trading and sales and will report to Michael Lublinksy, global head of macro, and Guy Saidenberg, global head of distribution and structuring, the bank said in a statement.

He joins Barclays after 13 years at Deutsche Bank, where he was global head of forex coverage. Previously he also worked at Lehman Brothers and Citibank.

Barclays has also announced it has appointed Peter Kimpel as head of banking and country manager for Germany.

Kimpel was most recently chief financial officer of internet company Rocket Internet SE. Before that he worked at Goldman Sachs for more than 20 years.

He is due to join Barclays in October, reporting to Carlo Calabria, head of banking coverage, continental Europe and central and eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and head of banking, Barclays Bank Ireland, for his banking responsibilities, and to Kevin Wall, CEO for Barclays Bank Ireland, in his country manager role.

Euronext has appointed Chris Topple as chief executive of Euronext London and head of global sales, as well as to the managing board of Euronext NV, the company said in a statement.

Topple is set to take up the role on October 15. Previously he was co-head of Société Générale prime services. He has also worked at Lehman Brothers and JP Morgan.

Roland Schwinn, regional head for Asia at derivatives exchange operator Eurex, is leaving the company for personal reasons, the company said in a statement.

Schwinn played a key role in developing Eurex’s Asia business over the past 12 years, obtaining regulatory licences for Eurex in Abu Dhabi, Australia, Dubai, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan and to directly connect exchange members. He also established the exchange’s offices in Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo.

Patrick Strange, a member of the board of directors of the New Zealand Stock Exchange, will step down by the exchange’s 2019 annual meeting.

Strange has served as a director since April 2015. He has contributed to the development of the exchange’s strategy, energy and dairy markets, and the recent divestment of its non-core businesses. He also served as a member of its audit and risk and clearing committees.

His decision to retire from the NZX board follows his appointment as chair-elect of the Auckland International Airport. He will continue to serve as a director at Chorus, Mercury and Essential Energy in Australia.

Asset manager BlueMountain Capital Management has hired Scott Troeller as a portfolio manager to handle infrastructure-related private investments, with an initial focus on energy, environmental and telecommunications infrastructure in North America, it said in a statement.

Troeller will be based in New York and report to Andrew Feldstein, co-founder and chief investment officer, the firm said. He will be BlueMountain’s first senior investment professional to focus exclusively on infrastructure.

Troeller last worked at Fir Tree Partners, where he was a managing director, focusing on private equity investments. He was also a managing director at Titan Grove Holdings, the private investment arm of Fir Tree’s founders. Prior to Fir Tree, he spent more than a decade at private investment firm VSS, where he was a general partner and member of the executive committee. He began his career at JP Morgan.

BlueMountain also announced Nitin Dewan has joined the firm’s equities team as portfolio manager, primary strategies. He is based in New York and will report to Lance Rosen, who joined BlueMountain as head of equities last year.

Before BlueMountain, Dewan was head of event-driven and special situations at BlueMar Capital Management. He has also held roles at Alyeska Investment Group, Blackstone, McKinsey & Company and Shumway Capital Partners.

Financial services holding company Stifel Financial has hired Adam Vengrow as managing director and head of credit, in charge of fixed income research, sales and trading, the company said in a statement.

He is based in the firm’s New York office and reports to Eric Needleman, head of fixed income at Stifel.

Previously, Vengrow spent nearly a decade at Cantor Fitzgerald, where he was most recently co-head of the credit group. Earlier in his career he also worked at UBS and PaineWebber.

Kate Childress has been hired by research and advocacy group Bank Policy Institute as executive vice-president and head of public affairs, the organisation said in a statement. She will report to Gregory Baer, chief executive of BPI, and will be based in Washington.

Childress joins from JP Morgan, where she most recently served as the point person for chief executive Jamie Dimon for the firm’s work with the business roundtable. She spent nearly 10 years at JP Morgan, where she helped lead the congressional advocacy effort around the drafting of the Dodd-Frank Act, and the bank’s regulatory implementation advocacy.