Agency-only brokerage Cheevers & Co. has hired 20-year veteran John Barone to lead the trading execution, sales and client service efforts for the firm’s equities trading desk.
Barone was previously the director of equity sales and trading at Melvin & Co. for about two and a half years. He will be vice president of institutional sales and trading and report to Laura Yunger, president of Cheevers.
“I thought the opportunity to expand the business was a lot greater here, for a variety of reasons,” Barone told Traders Magazine.
Prior to joining Melvin, Barone was a principal and equity trader at William Blair & Co. Rounding out his resume’, he has also worked at Chicago Corp. and traded options on the floor of the Chicago Board Options Exchange.
As a minority owned business, Cheevers has MWBE status, and the firm also recently expanded into corporate buybacks with the hire of former Northern Trust trader Brett Klein.
Though Cheevers might not be able to compete with the likes of Jones Trading or Cantor Fitzgerald, Barone said the firm is well positioned within its space and ready for growth. He noted the firm has experienced traders and a 24-hour international department that is staffed onsite.
“We’d just like to expand our presence in client services,” Barone said. “We need to do more business with more money managers. Fortunately, whatever resources I might need, they’re there.”
Yunger said she was pleased the firm is acquiring Barone’s expertise, relationships and knowledge of the industry.
“We’ve been marketing to asset managers and plan sponsors really only for about three and a half years, and a lot of the growth that we’ve seen has been organic, based on relationships,” Yunger said. “We didn’t have a huge marketing plan in place.”
Yunger said Barone will help the firm build on its momentum and better tell its story.
