The Modern Markets Initiative (MMI), one of the newest trading industry advocacy organizations, announced that it has hired Bill Harts, a respected industry expert with deep knowledge of electronic trading and market structure as its chief executive officer.
Also, the advocacy group for electronic trading and high-frequency traders has also retained the firm of DLA Piper to advise it on regulatory and public policy matters.
In a release, Harts said, “I am delighted to be joining the founding MMI member firms to educate people about the benefits of high-frequency trading and lead the ongoing debate as to how to improve our market structure. Our organization has a bright future as markets come to reflect our core principles-the attributes of electronic trading-efficient, simple, transparent and well-regulated.”
He added the addition of DLA Piper, with its Washington D.C.-based senior adviser and former Commodity Futures Trading Commissioner Bart Chilton, as well as the other staff of “legislative and regulatory experts” will help MMI achieve its goals.
“The role and benefits of high frequency trading are misunderstood by many,” said Chilton. “Through education, transparency and the right type of constructive regulation, HFT’s role will be accepted and endorsed as essential to today’s modern markets. The U.S. markets are the envy of the world and we must keep them that way.”
Harts is a well-known authority on institutional financial services, having built and operated several large-scale businesses in the space. A 25-year veteran of the trading markets, Harts was a pioneer of algorithmic trading and has directly fostered innovative uses of applied technology in sales and trading. He was a managing director and head of electronic trading services for Bank of America Securities as well as managing director of global program trading for Citigroup. Harts also held the position of executive vice president for corporate strategy for The NASDAQ Stock Market.
Chilton, currently a senior policy advisor at the law firm DLA Piper, spent nearly 30 years working across the federal government – in Congress and the executive branch serving under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Most recently he served as a commissioner for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
DLA Piper also recently bolstered its talent base with the addition of former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chief Counsel Elizabeth Ritter, who joined the joined the firm in early August as a partner in its Corporate and Finance practice.
