BT To Shift TRS Authority To U.K.; Digital Swipes BT's Ingrid Howe

BT North America Inc. is poised to reshuffle its trading room systems organization in the U.S. as a result of its alliance with MCI Communications Corp. Oversight of product development will be moved to BT's parent company in the U.K., with the U.S.-based group retaining responsibility for sales of those products.

Meanwhile, Digital Equipment Corp. has hired away BT product marketing executive Ingrid Howe to fill (finally) its several-months vacant U.S. capital markets manager position. Howe took office at DEC Oct. 12. At BT, Howe oversaw product marketing and product management for the vendor's financial trading systems -- including telephony and market data distribution systems.

DEC has been looking to fill the U.S. trading room system sales spot since at least the spring (TST, July 12). She is one of three regional vice presidents reporting to Peter Shelton, managing director of the vendor's global trading and exchanges solutions group.

While at BT, Howe had witnessed a number of reorganizations in her unit. Most recently, BT modestly staffed up in the financial products sales and marketing areas and for the first time assigned a general manager exclusively to the group -- John Watkins (TST, June 14). Howe reported to Watkins.

Now, sources say, Watkins' role could be clipped to sales and marketing of products the responsibility for which lies across the U.K. Earlier, BT had repositioned its financial trading systems unit, bringing it into a new division known as indirect and specialized sales, under the direction of then-new hire Bill Doucette. Now, sources say, Doucette is on the way out of that group. Neither Howe nor Doucette nor Watkins could be reached for comment.