HERD

Telekurs has lost its most senior executive responsible for product development. Chris Nokes was head of Telekurs' financial information division, based in Zurich. Nokes spearheaded the vendor's shift from data collection and distribution into the arena of applications -- a transition the vendor cannot yet claimed it's made. No word yet on where and why he went. Nor has news of the vendors plans to replace Nokes hit the street. Among the tasks that replacement will face is competing development work on Telekurs' Financial Information Management System market data collection and delivery platform, as well as a suite of risk management applications.

Morgan Stanley principal in information technology Keith Iverson has bid his firm adieu. A source at Morgan says that the firm has hired no replacement. Iverson couldn't be reached for comment; it could not be determined at press time where he now works.

Thomson Financial's Technical Data has hired Mark Serlin, senior economist of Ried Thunberg & Co. Serlin, whose Tech Data title is the same as his old Ried Thunberg title, reports to Tech Data managing analyst Scott Knous. No word on a replacement at Ried Thunberg. In any case, Serlin's commentary will still appear solely via Dow Jones Telerate. Both Tech Data and Ried Thunberg are Telerate- exclusive optional service providers.

File Under "An Interesting Way to Define Growing": Despite recently making news for upsetting its employees, Knight-Ridder Financial, placed an ad in a number of dailies seeking a vice president of human resources in which it touted itself as a "fast-growing" company. The chosen applicant will lead K-R's global efforts in that area, reporting directly to K-R's president, Paul Tucker. According to Knight-Ridder vice president of marketing Jerry Becker, "the global position will be based in New York, but will be responsible for all of our regions. This person will simply coordinate the human resources for all the regions; hiring is still done on a regional basis."

ILX Systems announced in an ad that it is looking to enhance its staff in the systems development and quality assurance areas. ILX's hypothetical systems developer has a minimum of two-plus years in C/Unix development.

Dow Jones Telerate wants a customer service manager for its Jersey City, N.J.-based offices.

Chicago Mercantile Exchange has promoted Donald Serpico, who was the exchange's senior vice president of operations. He will become executive vice president of operations.

Fidelity Brokerage is hunting for senior programmer analysts to do relational database development work. Specifically, the vendor wants expertise in Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Unix operating system, Sybase Inc.'s relational database management system and X Windows.

Tony Attrel, who was a managing director at McGraw-Hill Inc.'s MMS International, has headed for the door. Although he hasn't surfaced yet, sources indicate he plans to start his own company.