People moves: Wipf hands ARRC reins to Phelan, Tyce heads to Nomura, and more

The June 30 demise of US dollar Libor was accompanied by a change of guard at the Alternative Reference Rates Committee, as Tom Wipf stepped down from his role chairing the Federal Reserve-backed working group and handed the reins to Peter Phelan (pictured), chief administrative officer for the institutional clients group, North America, at Citigroup.

Wipf, who spent four years leading the transition project, also moved on from his role as vice-chairman of institutional securities at Morgan Stanley and will join UBS to lead the integration of Credit Suisse.

Prior to joining Citi, Phelan was deputy assistant secretary for capital markets at the US department of the Treasury, where he was heavily focused on benchmark transition and was an ex officio member of the ARRC.

As chair, Phelan would oversee the conclusion of the ARRC’s multi-year effort to steer US markets to the secured overnight financing rate, or SOFR. He told Risk.net this includes “addressing final issues that may arise, and memorialising the key tools and recommendations to support a robust reference rates market to ensure this situation never happens again”.

He added. “We will be keeping an eye on key issues including progress in the continued take-up of overnight SOFR, term SOFR hedging, and the use of synthetic Libor.”

Synthetic Libor – comprising term SOFR plus a fixed spread– will continue to be published in place of the legacy rate until September 2024, providing additional transition time for tough legacy contracts that are not governed by US law.

Wipf presided over a hefty workload at the ARRC’s, including penning fallback amendments for cash instruments to re-hitch to SOFR, the launch of a ‘SOFR first’ initiative aimed at embedding the risk-free rate in new contracts, and the passage of Federal legislation, deemed crucial for sweeping up tough legacy contracts.

Some decisions weren’t without controversy. Strict limits on the availability of forward-looking SOFR in derivatives markets riled many dealers, while a fierce debate raged over the availability of credit-sensitive alternatives to SOFR.

Many of those issues are still being thrashed out. The International Organization of Securities Commissions recently ruled some credit-sensitive rates did not comply with international standards, raising questions for those who have already adopted alternatives to SOFR.

It is not known how long the ARRC will continue. Benchmark transition working groups in the UK and Japan also continued to convene following the cessation of legacy rates at the end of 2021, though remained primarily focused on the impact of US transition on their local markets. The national working group on Swiss franc reference rates was dissolved following the cessation of Swiss franc Libor.

Nat Tyce, a 25-year veteran of Barclays’ rates trading business, has resurfaced at Nomura, where he will head the global markets division for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Tyce will replace John Goff, who takes on the newly created role of global head of structuring at the Japanese dealer.

Tyce left Barclays in June 2022 after holding a number of senior positions. He most recently co-headed the global macro trading division and headed macro trading for Europe and Asia Pacific. Tyce was replaced by Carl Scott, who is head of Emea rates trading and global head of counterparty risk trading at the UK bank.

Based in London, Tyce will report to Rig Karkhanis, head of global markets, and Jonathan Lewis, chief executive of the bank’s European subsidiary, Nomura European Holdings (NEHS).

Tyce will also be a member of the NEHS executive committee and the wholesale executive committee.

Barclays has appointed Torsten Schöneborn and Jerry Minier as co-heads of G10 FX Trading. Both will be based in London and report to Michael Lublinsky, global head of macro.

Schöneborn joins from BNP Paribas, where he was global head of electronic platform and global head of quant prime broking. Prior to that, he spent almost 10 years at Deutsche Bank, where he held various roles including global co-head of electronic equities and head of eFX spot quant trading.

Minier will take on the new position alongside his existing role as Barclays’ global head of FX options trading. He joined the bank in 2020 from Goldman Sachs, where he held FX options roles in New York, London and Hong Kong.

The latest appointments reflect Barclays’ ongoing investment in the global macro platform. The bank recently hired Guy Winkworth to head sterling products and euro inflation, and Igor Cashyn to head US dollar inflation.

Flavio Figueiredo has been named global head of foreign exchange at Citi in New York, according to an internal memo seen by Risk.net. A 35-year veteran of the bank, Figueiredo takes over from Stuart Staley, who left in April after 20 years with the US lender.

Leo Arduini, chief operating officer for the bank’s markets division, was appointed interim FX head while Citi sought a permanent replacement.

Figueiredo was most recently global head of corporate sales and solutions for the bank’s markets division.

He began his career with Citi in Brazil in 1989, initially holding roles in finance and tax and later joining private equity and sales and trading teams. Figueiredo then headed the derivatives and structured products business before moving to New York to lead Citi’s Latin America FX and derivatives sales and structuring teams. He later relocated to London to integrate the regional corporate FX sales teams and run Emea corporate solutions.

The pattern of senior staff leaving Credit Suisse following the bank’s takeover by rival UBS continues with the departure of Jim Barkley, who was chief compliance officer for the Swiss lender’s global investment banking division. Barkley has joined EY as a partner in its financial services risk management business consulting arm, according to his LinkedIn page.

Before his seven-year stint at CS, including three in his most recent role, Barkley served as JP Morgan’s global head of corporate internet banking compliance practices. Prior to that he spent a decade as a market risk manager

John Antonakakis, a senior risk manager at Credit Suisse, has also left the bank to head to Brevan Howard, where he has been appointed senior risk officer for its equities strategies operation, based in New York.

Antonakakis completed two stints at CS. In his most recent, three-year stretch, he was global head of market risk for cash equities, systemic strategies and equity capital markets. He previously spent a decade at the bank as market risk manager.

Between these two stretches, he served as a director of risk and quantitative analysis at BlackRock. He also served as chief risk officer for QT Fund – a quant hedge fund strategy run out of Credit Suisse’s asset management arm, which was shuttered in 2020.

Mark Spanbroek has stepped down from his role as chair of the FIA’s European Principal Traders Association (FIA EPTA) after five years leading the trade body. He will be replaced by Alistair McGrath, chief executive of Tower Research Capital Europe.

Spanbroek has been a member of FIA EPTA since its creation in 2011. He held a range of roles including vice-chair, secretary general and a 2015–2016 stint as acting chair during a short absence by his predecessor, Remco Lenterman.

Before chairing the association, Spanbroek spent nine years at liquidity provider Getco. He remained a partner of the firm until 2013, when it was acquired by Knight Capital. Prior to joining Getco he spent 15 years at Dutch market making firm, Van der Moolen.

McGrath was elected as his replacement in a June 21 vote by executive committee members. He has been actively involved in FIA EPTA for eight years and was elected to the executive committee in 2022.

While Spanbroek was an independent chair, spending much of his time on FIA EPTA work, the changeover sees the role altered, enabling McGrath to continue his work at Tower Research Capital.

John Conneely has retired from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation following a 35-year career at the US regulator.

Conneely most recently served as the director of the division of complex institution supervision and resolution (CISR), a role he was appointed to in 2021.

He began his FDIC career in 1989 as a bank examiner in New York and was instrumental in establishing the CISR division in 2019. He held a variety of leadership positions within the agency including regional directorships in Chicago and New York

He also served as a banking policy adviser for international banking and securities markets at the US Department of Treasury.

The Bank for International Settlements has hired Maha El Dimachki to head its innovation hub in Singapore. El Dimachki begins on October 1, taking over from Andrew McCormack, who left BIS in April.

El Dimachki is currently head of early and high growth oversight at the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, where she leads a team providing supervisory support for start-up firms. She previously headed the FCA’s payments department and served as chief payments officer of Pay.UK, which operates retail interbank payment systems.

Morgan Stanley has appointed Charlotte Creager as head of European credit hedge fund sales in London.

Creager makes the move from Goldman Sachs, where she spent 14 years in both London and New York with a focus on emerging markets.

Creager follows Brett le Roux, who spent close to a decade at Goldman Sachs before joining Morgan Stanley’s London office as an executive director in equity derivatives sales in March.

A year after its nickel market mayhem incident, the London Metal Exchange’s clearing house, LME Clear, has appointed David Warren as chairman of the board. Warren, a former chief financial officer of the London Stock Exchange, succeeds Marco Strimer, who will step down after reaching the end of his two-year term.

Strimer will stay on as a director until the end of the year to support Warren’s transition.

Before joining the London Stock Exchange, Warren was chief financial officer and a senior adviser at Nasdaq.

Cboe has promoted Jill Griebenow to chief financial officer and treasurer, replacing Brian Schell, who leaves the role after six years.

Griebenow served as chief accounting officer at Cboe since 2018, a role she will also continue to hold. She was also chief financial Officer of Cboe’s European operations.

The board of supervisors of the European Banking Authority (EBA) has elected Helmut Ettl as vice-chairperson. Ettl, who will assume the role for two-and-a-half years, replaces Jo Swyngedouw, whose mandate came to an end.

Ettl is the executive director of the Austrian Financial Market Authority and has been a voting member of the EBA board since 2011. Ettl also sat on the EBA management board but stepped down to take on his new position as EBA vice-chairperson.

European savings and retirement services group, Athora Holding, has appointed Michael Koller as group chief risk officer.

His appointment follows the departure of Lukas Ziewer, who stepped down from the role in May.

Koller joins from insurance group, MS Amlin, where he also held the role of CRO. He spent almost a decade at Prudential where he was group risk director. Prior to that he was CRO for Aviva’s European operations.

In April, Athora appointed Chantal Waight as a managing director of group risk. Waight joined from M&G, where she was director of strategy and Corporate development. Previously she worked as director of investor relations at Prudential.

Nidhi Agarwal has been hired as Virgin Money’s new head of model risk after a 12-year stint at HSBC, where she was most recently global head of model risk evaluation and oversight.

Agarwal will report to the chief risk officer Susan Poot and will be based in London.

Before joining HSBC, Agarwal worked at Barclays as a credit risk modeller and was a market risk analyst at Lloyds.

Following the departure of Sergio Ermotti, who recently returned to his role as chief executive at UBS, Swiss Re’s board of directors have proposed Jacques de Vaucleroy, for election as the new chairman at the next annual general meeting in April 2024.

De Vaucleroy, who is currently vice-chairman, was elected to Swiss Re’s board of directors in 2017. He chairs the compensation committee and the governance and nomination committee. He is also chairman of the board of directors of Swiss Re Europe and Swiss Re International.

Additional reporting by Helen Bartholomew