People moves: Barclays switches CEO in post-Staley refresh, Citi dials up digital team, and more

CS Venkatakrishnan has stepped up as group chief executive of Barclays, as the bank moves to shake off any whiff of association with the late, disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Venkatakrishnan replaces Jes Staley, who stepped down as CEO in early November, following the initial conclusions of an investigation by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority and Bank of England into how Staley had described his relationship with Epstein to his firm – and how Barclays subsequently defined the relationship to the FCA. Staley will contest the regulators’ conclusions.

Venkatakrishnan joined Barclays in 2016. He was previously head of global markets, co-president of Barclays Bank and, before that, chief risk officer. Before joining Barclays, he was chief investment officer in asset management at JP Morgan.

His appointment ushers in a number of changes to the group’s executive committee. Paul Compton becomes global head of Barclays’ Corporate and Investment Bank and president of Barclays Bank. Compton was previously global head of investment banking and co-president of Barclays Bank. He has occupied the roles of Barclays Group chief operating officer and CEO of Barclays execution services. Based in New York, Compton reports to Venkatakrishnan.

Alistair Currie becomes global head of consumer banking and payment, from being head of corporate banking, while David Farrow, previously head of client coverage for corporate banking, steps into Currie’s former role on an interim basis.

Ashok Vaswani takes on the role of chief digital strategy officer, responsible for the bank’s digital products and services, in addition to leading its strategic partnerships.

Reporting to Compton, Stephen Dainton moves from deputy head of markets to co-head of global markets distribution. Working alongside him, Adeel Kahn moves from global head of credit products to co-head of global markets for trading.

Most recently co-heads of investment banking, JF Astier and John Miller have been appointed global co-heads of investment banking and will also report to Compton.

As reported in November by Risk.net, the bank has also appointed Stephane Goursat to a newly created role as head of equity derivatives institutional sales for Asia ex-Japan and the Middle East region. He was previously head of investment solutions at Credit Suisse.

Puneet Singhvi has been appointed head of digital assets for Citi’s institutional client group (ICG) business development team, as the firm seeks to strengthen its digital asset capabilities across the ICG with more than 100 new roles in coming months. Previously head of blockchain and digital assets in its global markets division, Singhvi reports to Emily Turner, ICG head of business development.

Shobhit Maini and Vasant Viswanathan take over as co-heads of blockchain and digital assets for global markets, reporting to Biswarup Chatterjee, head of innovation, global markets.

From February, Ian Cooper will head Citi’s UK liability-driven investment and domestic rates sales, moving from his position as Europe, Middle East and Africa (Emea) head of rates sales at NatWest Markets. He will be based in London.

JP Morgan has hired Neven Graillat to run its new global markets sustainability centre within global structuring and solutions, where he will manage environmental social and governance efforts across sales and markets, trading, research and banking. Based in Paris, he reports to Rui Fernandes and Masi Yamada, co-heads of global investor structuring. Graillat joins from BNP Paribas, where he was chief sustainable product officer for global markets.

Goldman Sachs has lost two senior members of its emerging markets trading business. Akash Patel, formerly global head of emerging market credit trading, is believed to have moved to hedge fund Millennium. Jamie Peterson, who was a senior emerging markets credit trader based in New York, is also believed to have left. Goldman Sachs did not respond in time for publication.

John Moore is joining NatWest Markets as head of leveraged credit sales, moving from his most recent position as head of Emea flow credit sales at Nomura. Moore was previously managing director of high yield and distressed credit at Jefferies International. Based in London, he reports to Stefano Marzeglia, head of Emea credit sales.

The Bank of Montreal has hired Kavel Patel, a former member of Citi’s electronic trading team, according to his LinkedIn profile. Patel will help set up an electronic trading business at the bank’s London branch, with further hires expected in coming weeks. BMO did not respond in time for publication.

Vijay Sundaram joins Nomura Holdings as global head of wholesale front office risk and control, effective November 1. New York-based Sundaram reports to head of global markets Yutaka Nakajima, to global head of investment banking Masahiro Got, and locally to Chris Willcox, CEO and president of Nomura Securities International.

Sundaram was previously front office CRO for equities at Jefferies, and prior to that, spent 17 years at UBS as CRO of Global Prime Services and Treasurer of Global Equities.

Elsewhere at Nomura, Carmelite Ritorto has been named head of insurance solutions for Emea. Ritorto was previously an executive director at Natixis within the global structured credit and solutions team.

Brad Hu, former group CRO at Citi, has joined State Street Corporation as its CRO. He commences his new role on January 1 but has already joined the bank’s executive committee to work on the transition with his predecessor, Andrew Kuritzkes, who is retiring.

Adityadeb Mukherjee has been appointed Lloyds Banking Group head of ESG in its enterprise credit risk team. He was previously head of climate risk management at Standard Chartered Bank.

BNP Paribas Credit 360, part of the bank’s research and analytics department, has named Stephen Caprio as head of European credit strategy. Caprio, who moved from UBS, where he was global credit strategist, will report to Viktor Hjort, global head of credit strategy and desk analysts. He is based in London.

Meanwhile, BNP Paribas Asset Management (BNPP AM) has bolstered its sustainability centre with a number of hires. Malika Takhtayeva has joined as ESG analyst, sustainable fixed income lead for Emea, based in London. For the past six years, she was an FIG, ESG/sustainable finance credit analyst at Moody’s Investors Services.

Thibaud Clisson, who has been with BNPP AM since 2009, becomes climate change lead. He was previously a senior ESG analyst responsible for utilities, materials and energy sectors.

Robert-Alexandre Poujade has been appointed biodiversity lead. Poujade was previously an ESG analyst concentrating on natural capital, ocean economies and biodiversity.

Delphine Riou moves to inclusive growth lead from her role as ESG analyst. Riou previously occupied the roles of operations officer at the International Finance Corporation and was a financial controller at PSA Peugeot Citroen group.

All four new hires will report to Alex Bernhardt, global head of sustainability research. Clisson, Poujade and Riou are Paris-based.

BNPP AM has also appointed Rachel Crossley to head of stewardship for Europe. Based in London, Crossley will report to Michael Herskovich, global head of stewardship.

Balyasny Asset Management has had a recent hiring spree with the additions of Jas Singh Sodhi, formerly of JP Morgan, now director of commodities data, and Capula’s Dinesh Hirani, who joins as a senior technology developer, according to his LinkedIn profile. Alvin Loshak, former head of non-linear rates trading at BNP Paribas, took up a portfolio management role in August. BAM did not respond in time for publication.

Meryam Omi is leaving Legal and General Investment Management (LGIM) at the end of December. Omi who occupied the role of head of sustainability LGIM for the past 10 years, is moving to a new climate finance organisation. Most recently, Omi was on secondment with the United Nations, where she was head of sustainability and responsible investment strategy for the COP26 High Level Champions Group.

Borsa Italiana has appointed Fabrizio Testa to the role of CEO and head of fixed income trading for the group and a member of the managing board of Euronext. Testa moves from his current position as CEO of MTS.

Testa’s predecessor, Raffaele Jerusalmi will step down as CEO on November 28 after 11 years in the role. Testa will take up the role of Borsa Italiana CEO on November 28 and will continue in his position as CEO of MTS into the first quarter of 2021.

Angelo Proni will take over Testa’s role of CEO of MTS, in which role he also joins the extended managing board of Euronext. He will assume the CEO job once the MTS board approves the 2021 financial results in early 2022.

There have been a number of changes at the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). Haoxiang Zhu has been appointed director of the SEC’s trading and markets division, starting December 10. A professor of finance at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Zhu is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He was previously an academic expert for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Bank for International Settlements, and served as a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s working group on financial markets.

Zhu takes over from David Saltiel, who stepped in as acting director of the division over the past couple of months. Saltiel becomes deputy director to the division and will continue to lead the Office of Analytics and Research.

John Nester, former director of the SEC’s Office of Public Affairs, has announced his retirement. Nester has been at the SEC for almost 25 years, first joining its investor education office in 1997. He occupied the role of public affairs director from 2006 to April 2021, when he moved to work in the office of the COO.

Elsewhere, Ahmed Abonamah has been appointed director of the the SEC’s Office of Credit Rating after serving as acting director since October 2020. Having joined in 2016, Abonamah has held multiple positions at the agency, including deputy director of the Office of Municipal Securities.

Nicole Creola Kelly has been named chief of the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower. Previously, Kelly was senior special counsel at the Office of the General Counsel and was previously counsel to former SEC chair Mary Jo White and counsel to former SEC Commissioner Kara Stein.

Cornelia Holthausen has been named director general macroprudential policy and financial stability at the European Central Bank (ECB), effective December 1. Holthausen takes over from Sergio Nicoletti Altimari, who is moving to Banca d’Italia to become director general for economics, statistics and research.

Holthausen has been deputy director general of economics since 2020 and before that was deputy director general and principal adviser at DG Market Operations. She first joined the ECB in 1999 as an economist in the ECB’s Financial Research Unit.

Sarah Devany has joined the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco as first vice-president and chief operating officer, starting December 1. Devany was previously president of TIAA Kaspick, where she also held the position of COO for nine years.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has appointed Stefan Ingves as vice-chairman for a three-year term. Ingves, who is governor of Sweden’s central bank, has been on the BIS board of directors since 2006 and has chaired its Banking and Risk Management Committee since 2007.

Elsewhere at the BIS, the terms of Agustín Carstens and Luiz Awazu Pereira da Silva have been extended. Carstens’ term of office as general manager is extended by two-and-a-half years to June 2025; Pereira da Silva’s as deputy general manager by one year to August 2023.

The Association for Financial Markets in Europe has expanded its Frankfurt office with the relocation of two staff members. Richard Middleton will be responsible for developing relationships with local trade bodies, regulators and supervisory authorities in Frankfurt, while Arved Kolle will be tasked with building up relationships in Berlin and interacting with the ECB.

The UK’s Personal Investment Management and Financial Advice Association (Pimfa) has appointed Geoff Towers to its board as a non-executive director. Towers was previously CEO of BNY Mellon’s Pershing before stepping down in June to focus on non-executive roles.

Charles River Development, a front- and middle-office software provider owned by State Street, has appointed Caroline O’Shaughnessy as head of Emea. O’Shaughnessy joins from the London Stock Exchange Group, where she held positions of chief client officer, global head of sales and marketing for the group’s information services division and head of the strategic account programme. Based in London, she will report to Spiros Giannaros, president and CEO of Charles River.

Independent financial risk advisory and technology firm Validus Risk Management has appointed Jarv Ashford as COO, and Scott Simonton as principal, responsible for accelerating growth in the US. Ashford, who was previously COO at WisdomTree Europe, will be London-based. Simonton, based in New York, joins from Brookfield Asset Management.

Talos, an institutional digital assets infrastructure provider, has hired Samar Sen as head of Asia-Pacific. Most recently, Sen was global head of digital products for securities services at Deutsche Bank. He is based in Singapore, reporting to CEO Anton Katz.

Foreign exchange data and analytics provider, Tradefeedr has appointed Michal Marcek to its advisory group, which assists in advising the firm on product development and strategic road-mapping. Marcek joins from Pimco in Munich, where he was portfolio manager in global fixed income and, previously, portfolio associate in European FX.

Flavia Micilotta has joined professional services firm TMF Group as director of ESG solutions. Micilotta previously led the sustainability practice at Deloitte and earlier was executive director of Eurosif. She reports to Andrew O’Shea, global head of fund services.

Dom Holland has joined LedgerEdge, the distributed ledger corporate bond-trading platform, as senior fixed income leader for US business development. Holland was previously head of fixed income electronic markets at BNY Mellon. He will assist in the US expansion of the firm, reporting to US CEO Michelle Neal.

Luma Financial Technologies, a multi-issuer structured products and annuities platform, has hired Arun Kumar as chief technology officer. Reporting to president and CEO Tim Bonacci, Kumar is based in New York. Prior to joining Luma, he was responsible for core platforms, enterprise data and analytics at Citadel.