BTIG landed Daniel Blood for the firm’s Investment Banking unit as the Head of Specialty Finance. Blood joined as a Managing Director in New York, where he will lead the Specialty Finance effort. Prior to BTIG, he was the Group Head of Real Estate and the Head of the New York office at FBR, where he spent ten years. Blood also served at Bear Stearns for 18 years, where he held a variety of capital markets and investment banking roles. He began his career at Chemical Bank, where he was a Lending and Relationship Banker in the Chicago Office for five years.
If you have a new job or promotion to report, let me know at jdantona@marketsmedia.com
Confluence Technologies named Sunil Rajan as Global Head of Sales. In this role, he is responsible for setting the company’s overall sales strategy and overseeing the global sales team responsible for executing on it. He comes to Confluence with more than 20 years of experience introducing and expanding business footprints across multiple markets and regions in the financial services and technology industries. Most recently, he served as Managing Director, EMEA & APAC at Axioma. Earlier, Rajan was Head of Business Development (EMEA) for Standard and Poor’s Risk Solutions, and he has held senior leadership roles at Thomson Reuters, Misys and other global software, services and financial data companies. Throughout his career, Rajan has focused on scaling and aligning business teams, cultures, processes and reporting, as he employs best practice sales methodologies to spur growth. Rajan is based in Confluence’s Wimbledon office and reports directly to Todd Moyer, President and COO.
If you have a new job or promotion to report, let me know at jdantona@marketsmedia.com
Marina Iodice landed a new job as Senior Portfolio Manager Impact Investing at NN Investment Partners beginning in July. She will be working together with Huub van der Riet (Lead Portfolio Manager), Ivo Luiten (Senior Portfolio Manager) to manage our Global Impact Equity strategy as well as the 3 Thematic Impact Funds (Health & Well-being, Smart Connectivity, Climate & Environment). She will report to Hendrik-Jan Boer, Head of Sustainable & Impact investing. She brings with her a decade of international experience in responsible and impact investing joining from Mirova in Paris, the subsidiary of Natixis Investment Managers dedicated to sustainable & impact investing.
BNY Mellon hired Geoff Yu for its Markets business as Primary Market Strategist in EMEA. Yu comes from UBS Wealth Management, where he most recently served as UK Chief Investment Officer, managing a team which specialized in UK-focused research. Prior to this position, he served as Head of FX Strategy for UBS AG Ltd, in addition to a number of other positions in London, Zurich and Singapore during his 14 years with the firm. Yu is based in London and will report to Daniel Tenengauzer, Head of Markets Strategy.
Incapital has landed a pair of trading veterans – Michael Stevens and Michael Communiello—both as Managing Directors, Preferred Securities Sales & Trading and will report to Laura Elliott, co-head of fixed income.
Stevens comes from Brownstone Investment Group, where he served as a Director of Preferred Securities Trading. Previously, he traded preferred securities for Incapital from 2014 to 2016 and for Susquehanna International Group from 2011 to 2014. Prior to joining Susquehanna in 2011, he was a Managing Director of Preferred and Credit Securities at Kellogg Partners. He also held similar positions at Goldman Sachs and Legg Mason. Stevens brings more than 40 years of experience to Incapital in is based in New York City.
Communiello also comes from Brownstone Investment Group, where he served as a Director of Preferred Securities Trading and managed the Hybrid & Preferred Securities Trading Desk. Between 2000 and 2008, he worked in many capacities at Spear, Leeds & Kellogg and was appointed as the Head of Preferred Securities following Goldman Sachs’ sale of the SLK fixed income group to FTN Financial in 2006. Communiello then held various Sales-Trading positions at Maxim Group and The PrinceRidge Group (JVB Financial). He brings 20 years of industry experience to the firm and is in New York City.
Finantix, a technology firm to the wealth management, insurance and banking industries, named Christine Ciriani as its new Chief Executive Officer. She will assume the role and responsibilities of CEO alongside that of her existing position as Chief Commercial Officer (CCO), to which she was appointed in October 2019.
Penso Advisors, a New York-based manager and advisory boutique specializing in discretionary macro and risk mitigating strategies, created its own Advisory Board, whose first members include Alan Howard, Co-Founder of Brevan Howard, Raymond Kanner, former CIO of IBM Retirement Funds’ system and Mike Edleson, former CRO of The University of Chicago Office of Investments. The Advisory Board will serve as external advisors to the firm, providing expert perspectives on global macro investing, investment operations and institutional risk and portfolio management.
Alan Howard is the Co-Founder of Brevan Howard, one of the world’s leading global macro absolute return managers. Raymond Kanner was formerly the Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer of IBM’s global Retirement Funds’ system, where he spent 9 years as its CIO, overseeing approximately $150 billion of IBM pension and savings funds worldwide. Mike Edleson was formerly the Chief Risk Officer for the University of Chicago Endowment, a position he had held since 2010, recently retiring to Emeritus status.
