Concannon Trades Cboe for MarketAxess

Chris Concannon, the president and COO at Cboe Global Markets will join MarketAxess, heading up the same role. The new role will be effective as of January 22.

The veteran has more than 20 years of experience at senior level roles at trading firms and under his guidance. As CEO of Bats Global Markets, in 2017 he oversaw the exchange group’s acquisition by the Chicago Board Options Exchange, which later renamed itself to Cboe. He joined Bats as its CEO in 2014, and led the group during its initial public offering. Prior to Bats, he was the president and COO at Virtu Financial, following a stint at Nasdaq where he ran the exchange group’s transaction businesses. He started his career as an attorney with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and the law firm Morgan, Lewis and Bockius before joining Island ECN as its general counsel. When it became part of Instinet, Concannon was the president of the firm’s clearing services. The latest announcement comes in conjunction with the Cboe’s latest changes to its management team for 2019.

Coming into effect on January 14, Chris Isaacson will become the new vice president and COO of Cboe, replacing Concannon. Eric Crampton, the current senior vice president (VP) and global head of software engineering will resume his title as senior VP and be promoted to CTO. Ed Tilly, chairman, and CEO will also assume the role of president, a role he previously held at the Chicago Board Options Exchange from 2011 to 2013.

During the Cboe acquisition of Bats, Isaacson headed up the integration of the exchanges’ technology platforms. He was a founding member of Bats in 2005 and held various senior executive positions at the exchange including COO, and executive vice president and CIO.

• LISTEN:  Last year, Isaacson joined the Waters Wavelength Podcast to discuss the exchange’s migration to Bats’ technology. Click here to listen to the conversation.

Crampton joined Cboe in 2017, following the acquisition, and previously headed up the software engineering teams at Bats since 2008. He led the implementation of exchange’s proprietary platform and the technology integrations of Chi-X Europe and Direct Edge, following their acquisitions.