Blythe Masters has joined Digital Asset Holdings as its new chief executive officer, overseeing the launch of the firm's digital trading platform for currencies like bitcoin and other digitized financial assets. Masters, a 17 year veteran, spend her entire career at JPMorgan Chase. For the last seven years , she was its global head of commodities, and for the three years before that was chief financial officer of JP Morgan Chase's Investment Bank. Earlier, she spent two years as head of global credit portfolio and credit policy strategy and two years as head of North American structured credit products and co-head of Asset Backed Securitization.
Former New York Stock Exchange CEO Duncan Niederauer has been appointed Advisory Director of Tera Group, the parent company of the TeraExchange derivatives trading platform dedicated to trading bitcoins. Last fall, TeraExchange announced plans to launch what it called "the first regulated platform for bitcoin derivatives and a spot bitcoin price index." According to a press statement, "Niederauer will draw on his immense international experience to provide the firm with strategic advice and insight on growth strategies. In addition, he will participate in select senior-level client events and conferences, as well as provide briefings on global financial trends to the firm's Board as appropriate.
Block trading firm Liquidnet has hired Chris Jackson as its European head of Execution and Quantitative Services (EQS) Group, a new role. Jackson, a pro with over twenty years of experience, is charged with setting the strategic direction of the European Trading Desk and Algorithmic Services Group, as well as heading up the senior sales effort for Liquidnet's global algorithmic offering with European clients. He came from Citi where he was head of execution sales, EMEA. Prior to Citi, Chris spent twelve years at Merrill Lynch where he was head of sales across program, transitions and electronic trading. He started his career at SBC Warburg in 1995, where for two years he worked in the EMEA Portfolio Sales and sales trading team.
KCG appointed Eric Laumann as its head of risk arbitrage and hired Jason King and veteran event-driven trader Louis Juliano. The group will be split between the firm's Jersey City, N.J. and Chicago offices. Laumann brings over 20 years of experience in event arbitrage-related services and complex, multi-billion dollar civil litigation to his role at KCG. He joins from Millennium Partners, where he was a risk arbitrage co-portfolio manager. Prior to that, Laumann held several leadership positions in event arbitrage, including managing director and head of the North American risk arbitrage desk at Credit Suisse, senior member of Bear Stearns' buyside/sellside risk arbitrage desk, and senior analyst on Deephaven Capital Management's event arbitrage team. He reports to Greg Tusar, co-head of KCG's global execution services and platforms.
KCG hired Michael Cahill as its new head of FX relationship management. A 10 year veteran, Cahill will be responsible for leading the firm's efforts in expanding its FX client footprint and will be a part of its principal FX market making team. He came from Nomura Securities where was the head of FX electronic distribution for the Americas. At Nomura he managed and grew the eFX client franchise and worked to develop its business strategy. Prior to Nomura Securities, Cahill spent seven years at Morgan Stanley, most recently serving as Vice President in foreign exchange sales.
Bloomberg Tradebook announced Glenn Lesko as its new chief executive officer and president. Lesko's transition to the new office includes leading the firm's businesses for Equities, Options, Futures, FX and Fixed Income trading
Luke Moranda joins Options Clearing Corp as its senior vice president and Chief Information Officer. In this role, he will direct the OCC's technology vision and strategy and replaces Raymond Tamayo. Moranda joins from JPMorgan Chase, where he was managing director, Clearing Technology and Global Payments Technology, Treasury Services Technology. Prior to that, he was an application manager and senior project manager with Heller Financial Capital, a part of GE Capital. He also was a senior consultant with Accenture. He reports to Michael McClain, OCC President and Chief Operating Officer.
