Jon Simblist, a former derivatives sales and trading director at Instinet, is now on the listings team at IEX. Simblist, who’s career in sales and trading spans more than a decade, was most recently a senior sales consultant at Eze Castle Integration. He also held positions at Bank of America, Convergex, and Macro Risk Advisors.
Jonathan Finney, the head of systematic trading at Fidelity International, has left the firm after nearly 12 years with the investment group, a spokesperson confirmed. Throughout his time he worked closely with the London team to develop the equities and derivatives trading strategy. His responsibilities also included building out Fidelitys transaction cost analysis and developing a framework for broker selection, analysis and allocation. Finney also handled numerous projects at the asset manager ranging from regulatory implementation tasks to EMS testing.
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The Foreign Exchange Professionals Association (FXPA) hired John Shay as President of the organization, a newly created role. Shay was an active Board member when he worked at FXPA founding member firm, Virtu Financial. His role at FXPA will be to help lead the group forward through membership outreach, working group coordination, and a focus on expanding FXPAs relationships with complementary trade groups, among other areas of expansion. Shay was mostly recently at Nasdaq, where he served as Senior Vice President and Global Head of Fixed Income and Commodities.
B2C2, a leading cryptocurrency market maker, said it landed Phillip Gillespie as CEO of B2C2 Japan. Gillespie will lead the companys operations in Tokyo. He comes from Goldman Sachs where he oversaw the FX G10 business for EMEA as part of the systematic market making team. Previously, he was an FX voice and systematic trader at Barclays and J.P. Morgan.
Cowen announced that John Holl has been named Head of International Sales and Trading for Cowen Execution Services Limited (CESL). In this role, Holl is overseeing the expansion of Cowens European-based sales and trading initiatives and further enhancing Cowens client-service resources. In addition, he is responsible for Cowens non-dollar equity business, which encompasses European and Asian equity trading. A veteran with over 25 years of experience, he joined Cowen following its recent acquisition of Convergex and most recently was Managing Director and Head of Convergex Limited’s Sales and Trading. He previously spearheaded Knight Capital Groups European equity business for 10 years, building a highly successful institutional business from the ground up. He has also held senior trading positions at Citigroup Global Markets and Credit Suisse First Boston, where he was involved with many different aspects of international sales trading. Holl began his career in equities at Schroder Wertheim and gathered valuable buy-side experience from his role at Sanford Bernstein. Holl reports to Dan Charney, Co-President, Cowen and Company.
Synechron, the global financial services consulting and technology services provider, announced Chris Ekonomidis has joined as Senior Director and US Regulatory Practice Head for Synechron Business Consulting. Ekonomidis brings over 15 years of experience in the financial markets, supporting clients in market structure and efficiency demands across fixed income, equities, and derivatives. Previously at Sapient Global Markets and EY, he has honed key skills in driving innovative strategies to improve business performance and manage risk. He will work out of Synechrons New York and Charlotte operations as US Consulting Lead.
AxiomSL, a global provider of regulatory reporting, risk and data management solutions, onboarded James Babicz as Senior Vice President and Head of the recently opened Canadian office in Toronto. Babicz has more than 25 years experience in implementing risk management solutions to address Canadian and international regulatory requirements. He joins from Canadian Western Bank, where he held a senior role in risk management, directing Risk Data Aggregation, Analytics and Reporting programs. He oversaw the development and execution of multiple projects, updating and streamlining the banks risk management operations. Prior to joining Canadian Western Bank, Babicz served as head of risk at SAS UK and Ireland and also held leadership positions at Algorithmics, where he was involved in the development of regulatory capital calculation, aggregation and reporting solutions to meet OSFI requirements.
The C rex Group, an institutional foreign exchange execution services and data analytics company, appointed Claudio Pannunzio as Managing Director, Marketing, to lead the firm’s global brand and marketing strategy efforts. Pannunzio is tasked with steering C rex Groups global marketing functions. , which encompasses responsibilities ranging from the execution of the companys brand strategy to its product marketing efforts, corporate communications, and digital marketing efforts. He possesses 20 years of FX markets experience and 15 years of strategic marketing communication expertise. Most recently, Pannunzio was President & Founder of I-Impact Group, Inc. a strategic marketing, communications and branding consultancy. Prior to founding I-Impact Group, he held senior positions at a number of leading public relations and marketing firms in New York City. He reports directly to Jamie Singleton, Group Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) has landed Jason Manske, Senior Managing Director, Chief Hedging Officer and Head of the Global Derivatives and Liquid Markets Group at MetLife Inc., to its Board of Directors. The appointment is part of a commitment by ISDAs Board to broaden its scope by incorporating members from diverse sectors of the derivatives market. As Senior Managing Director, Chief Hedging Officer and Head of the Global Derivatives and Liquid Markets Group, Manske is responsible for MetLifes global derivatives and currencies, government and short-term trading, structured solutions and capital markets businesses. He joined MetLife in 2008, having previously worked as Co-Head of Rate Sales at Credit Suisse and President of the firms US derivatives dealer. Prior to that, he worked at JP Morgan for 12 years, most recently as Head of Financial Institution Derivatives Marketing.
Synechron, the global financial services consulting and technology services provider, said Pankaj Gupta will be joining the Synechron Business Consultancy (SBC) team in the UK as Managing Director and Head of UK Business Consulting. A veteran with more than 20 years experience, Gupta spent over a decade at Infosys Consulting. He reports to London Managing Director Tony Clark.
