ADP Tweaks Organization To Target Institutions; Hires Bridge's Lascelles

Automatic Data Processing Inc. has hired Bridge Information Systems Inc.'s Jim Lascelles, effective July 1, to play a key role in the newly reorganized Financial Information Services (FIS) unit of ADP's Brokerage Information Service Group (BISG). Among the goals of the reorganization is to focus the vendor's efforts to court the institutional markets.

"Given our growth over the last five years," says FIS president Ralph Koehrer, "we are focusing on the important barriers and consequently have organized into four lines of business--national, retail brokerage, institutional and international--to be supported by our Mount Laurel, [N.J.] infrastructure."

Lascelles will head a team devoted to expanding ADP's share of the institutional market, both on the buy and sell sides. Lascelles was president of the now-defunct Pont Data Inc. until it went out of business (Inside Market Data, Feb 3, 1992), after which he moved to Bridge to become vice president in charge of that vendor's Latin American efforts.

ADP provides most of the market data used by retail brokerage firms, both national and--to a lesser extent--regional. ILX, with its still relatively small installed base, and Quotron with its handful of regional customers, share most of the rest.

"The four groups are self-contained teams," Koehrer adds. As part of the teams, salespeople and client support staff are joined by trainers and project managers to handle rollouts, and software developers to do custom work.

ADP's core retail brokerage business was split into two units by the vendor's reshuffling: national accounts and retail brokerage. The former (headed by Wayne Mickiewicz) is devoted to keeping ADP's four biggest customers content. The latter (led by Ralph Winnicker) will handle regional brokerage firms of all sizes.

As part of the same reorganization, ADP has formed a strategic architecture group, to be headed by ADP vice president Len Hoerst. Hoerst and his team are charged with designing a successor to ADP's FS Partner and host systems. ADP vice president Andy Valenti assumes the mantle of strategic initiatives, which will be responsible for developing new business opportunities both domestically and overseas.

In addition to new hire Lascelles, ADP has also brought Bob Barsky on board from Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co. to become chief operating officer for ADP's domestic business. He takes over the duties of Dick Zeitlin. Barsky will guide ADP's planned overhaul of its central systems during fiscal year 1994, which began July 1. Zeitlin will manage the integration of ADP's domestic and international business.