People moves: Credit Suisse’s new CFO, Velani joins BofA, and more

Credit Suisse has appointed Dixit Joshi as chief financial officer, replacing David Mathers, who stepped down this year as part of a management reshuffle. Joshi joins from Deutsche Bank, where he most recently served as group treasurer. He had previously been head of the fixed income institutional client group, listed derivatives and markets clearing at the German lender.

Based in Zurich, he will report to group chief executive Ulrich Körner, who took on the senior role in July after serving as chief executive for asset management. Körner replaced 23-year Credit Suisse veteran Thomas Gottstein.

There has been a string of changes in the bank’s leadership following losses resulting from the collapse last year of Archegos Capital Management and Greensill Capital, which also led to departures from the sales and trading divisions.

Michael J Rongetti has replaced Körner as interim chief executive of the asset management division and will remain as head of asset management Americas and global head of investments and partnerships. He previously served as chief financial officer of the asset management division.

Francesca McDonagh has been appointed to the newly created role of group chief operating officer, reporting to Körner.

Michael Bonacker has been appointed group head of transformation, reporting to McDonagh. Bonacker joined Credit Suisse in February from Oliver Wyman as vice-chairman of investment banking and capital markets for the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region.

Francesco De Ferrari, currently chief executive of the bank’s wealth management division, has been appointed chief executive EMEA, a position he has held on an interim basis since January.

Deutsche Bank has taken on many of Credit Suisse’s senior departures. These include former head of credit structuring Paul Bajer, who has joined as co-head of the cross asset and platforms group. Also from the credit team, Brian Connors has joined Deutsche as co-head of US investment grade corporates trading. Edward Marlow has joined the German lender as a managing director in the institutional client group’s central and eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa team. Ruchir Sharma has joined as co-head of global foreign exchange for Asia-Pacific. He previously ran Credit Suisse’s Asia-Pacific FX trading team in Singapore, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Elsewhere, Simon Johnson has left Credit Suisse to serve as head of credit sales for EMEA at Royal Bank of Canada. Based in London, he will report to Janet Wilkinson, the bank’s co-head of fixed income clearing corporation (FICC) sales. Johnson most recently served as Credit Suisse’s head of UK, hedge fund and Nordic credit sales. He spent more than 21 years in credit sales at the Swiss bank, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Bhupen Velani has joined Bank of America as head of global transactional foreign exchange trading. Velani worked most recently at JP Morgan but had a previous stint at BofA between 2014 and 2021, according to his LinkedIn profile. He reports to Carlos Fernandez-Aller, head of global foreign exchange and emerging markets macro trading.

Velani adds to a growing FX team at the US bank, which announced in June that it had added five senior traders, including three as heads of options trading markets: Julian Weiss, who joined from Nomura as head of global G10 vanilla FX options; Thomas Cobbold, who joined as head of global emerging markets FX options trading; and Tobias Jungmann, who joined as head of Americas FX options trading. Weiss and Cobbold are based in London, while Jungmann trades out of New York. All three report to FX options head Varut Dechpokket.

Elsewhere on the desk, Funda Celik joined as head of central and eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa local currency trading, reporting to Jan Smorczewski, head of both global G10 trading and EMEA FX and co-head of EMEA FICC trading. Pedro Ossa also joined as head of Andean local currency trading and reports to Latin America local currency trading head George Watanabe.

Former vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors Richard Clarida has rejoined Pimco as a managing director and global economic adviser. He previously spent 12 years at the California-based asset manager as its global strategic adviser. He was also an assistant secretary of the US Treasury for economic policy, serving as chief economic adviser to two Treasury secretaries. Clarida replaces Joachim Fels, who will retire from Pimco at the end of the year.

Liquidnet has hired Nichola Hunter to serve as global head of sales for fixed income. She most recently worked as head of rates at bond trading platform MarketAxess. Hunter joined MarketAxess as a result of its acquisition of LiquidityEdge, where she had been chief executive. She will be based in London and report to Liquidnet’s global head of fixed income, Mark Russell.

Going the other way, Rob Laible has left the company after eight years, most recently serving as global head of equities.

Cryptocurrency firm B2C2 USA has appointed Zeke Vince as head of US sales. He reports to chief executive Nicola White. Vince joins from Bank of America Securities, where he was global head of electronic foreign exchange sales. He previously spent six years at JP Morgan on the eFX sales team.

Saxo Bank has appointed Christine Kiener as its new head of institutional sales for its UK subsidiary Saxo Markets UK. She was previously head of business development for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Bravura Solutions.

Kevin Wolf has left Euronext FX after nearly five years at the firm. Before being appointed chief executive he served as the exchange operator’s head of fixed income, currencies and credit in the US. He previously worked at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Chris Topple is now head of Euronext FX. Topple continues to serve as head of foreign exchange and commodities and chief executive of Euronext London.

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has appointed Ruairi O’Connell as its new director of international. He joins from the Home Office (interior ministry), where he holds a similar position. O’Connell served as the British ambassador to Kosovo from 2015 to 2019.

Anish Puaar has joined electronic market-maker Optiver as head of European equity market structure. He most recently served as head of European market structure at Rosenblatt Securities, where he started in 2014, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Darren Bustin has left Royal London Asset Management, where he was head of derivatives, to join Schroders Solutions in a newly created role. As head of Schroders Solutions Capabilities, he will report to James Barham, the firm’s executive chairman. Prior to joining Royal London, Bustin was head of derivative solutions at Aegon Asset Management and previously held positions at Aladdin Capital Management and BNP Paribas, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Cowen has added to Cowen Digital, the digital assets division launched in March, by hiring Jackie Rose as director of institutional sales and Chase Campbell as vice-president of digital asset sales. Rose joins from Blockchain.com, where she was head of institutional business development. Campbell previously served as institutional sales associate at Coinbase.

Former CurveGlobal chief executive Andy Ross has joined Standard Chartered Bank as global head of prime brokerage. The London Stock Exchange Group announced last year that it would close the interest rate derivatives venture. Ross had joined CurveGlobal in 2016 from Morgan Stanley, where he had been European head of OTC clearing.

Michael Steliaros has left Goldman Sachs, where he was global head of quantitative execution services, to join the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority as global head of equity portfolio engineering and trading, according to his LinkedIn profile. Steliaros previously served as global head of scientific implementation and head of agency portfolio trading at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Goldman declined to comment on Steliaros’s replacement.