People Moves: LedgerEdge, JP Morgan, MarketAxess, Enfusion, and more

LedgerEdge appoints Michelle Neal CEO of US operations

LedgerEdge, an enterprise software company, has appointed Michelle Neal CEO of US operations. 

This appointment will support the US expansion of the firm, which is rolling out a global corporate bond-trading platform built on distributed ledger technology. LedgerEdge is starting with the launch of a UK multi-lateral trading facility in Q3 2021, followed by a launch of a US alternative trading system in Q1 2022.

LedgerEdge was founded in 2020 to address market structure issues by creating an ecosystem in which participants maintain control of their data, see the market more clearly, and unlock liquidity in the $41 trillion global corporate bond market.

Neal was most recently head of US fixed income, currencies and commodities and global head of senior relationship management at RBC Capital Markets.

Prior to this, she was CEO of BNY Mellon’s Markets Group and served on the bank’s executive committee. She has also held senior leadership positions in global markets trading, sales, financing and market structure-related businesses at Deutsche Bank, Nomura, and Natwest Markets.

JPMAM promotes Lee Bray to APAC head of data science

JP Morgan Asset Management has promoted Lee Bray to APAC head of data science. In this newly created role, his expanded responsibilities will include building a data science team within Asia Pacific to help JPMAM strengthen its investment platform and develop capabilities using various forms of artificial intelligence.

Utilizing data science, the new team will collaborate with regional and global business units within JPMAM to help drive efficiencies and growth, develop tools for clients, and enable innovation, such as contributing to the analysis of Asian ESG data sets to enhance JPMAM’s ESG proprietary scoring framework, which is currently in development. 

Bray, based in Hong Kong, will also continue to serve as APAC head of equity trading.

MarketAxess elects former HKEX executive to board of directors

MarketAxess, a fixed-income trading platform operator, has elected Charles Li to its board of directors.

Li is the former chief executive of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, the world’s largest exchange operator. During his tenure, he orchestrated HKEX’s expansion into fixed income, currencies, and commodities through the acquisition of the London Metal Exchange in 2012 and the launch of OTC Clear in 2013. He also enhanced mutual market access with Mainland China through the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Connect Programs and the Bond Connect initiative.

Before joining HKEX in 2009, Li was chairman of JP Morgan China, prior to which he was president of Merrill Lynch China.

Enfusion promotes Dan Groman to CTO

Enfusion, a provider of cloud-based investment management software and services, has promoted Dan Groman from co-head of technology to chief technology officer. In his new role, Groman will lead the overall software development, product management, IT, and security teams in driving strategic technology development and innovation to maximize Enfusion’s impact as a solutions partner for institutional investment managers and hedge funds.

Groman joined Enfusion in 2016 as a software developer. Since then, he has worked closely with the founding partners to manage Enfusion’s software development teams and lead the IT and security teams globally. Prior to joining Enfusion, Groman was a systems engineer at CME Group, working on the exchange’s systems infrastructure.

Groman began his career in middle- and back-office operations for institutional managers, holding positions at Northern Trust Hedge Fund Services and King Street Capital Management.

LCH appoints Rohit Verma APAC head 

LCH, a global clearing house, has appointed Rohit Verma as APAC head.

Verma will be responsible for LCH’s business in Asia Pacific, including the clearing house’s operations in Singapore, Sydney, and Tokyo. He will also be responsible for sales in the region and will sit on LCH’s sales leadership team. His appointment follows Kate Birchall’s move to London earlier this year, in which she assumed the position of head of sales.

Verma joins LCH from Citi, where he held a number of senior roles in the bank’s futures, OTC clearing, and FX prime brokerage business, most recently serving as APAC head of OTC clearing and FX prime brokerage. Prior to joining Citi, he held various risk management roles at Deutsche Bank, Landesbank-Baden Württemberg, and Credit Suisse.

Based in Singapore, Verma will report to Isabelle Girolami, CEO.

Finverty adds Alex Collingwood in new position as head of corporate sales & origination 

Finverity, a mid-market supply chain finance platform with a focus on emerging markets, has added Alex Collingwood as in the new position of head of corporate sales and origination. Collingwood will be in charge of growing Finverity’s corporate client base focusing specifically on the Middle East North Africa region and wider Europe, Middle East, and Africa regions.

He was most recently director of business development for the trade finance product suite at EvolutionAI, a data extraction company. Prior to that, Collingwood was global head of trade, cash, and FI, specializing in UK & GCC corporates and private wealth at Bank of London and the Middle East. Before BLME, he held senior roles at DNB Bank and Barclays.

He will report directly to Viacheslav Oganezov, CEO and co-founder of Finverity.

KX adds Mark Bannon as president of sales for North America

KX, a provider of time-series database technology, has named Mark Bannon president of sales for North America. He will assume overall responsibility for the North American sector and its growth. In this role, he will partner with the North American sales organization across finance and other industries to meet the growing need for ultra-high performance, real-time data analytics, and the insights they inspire.

Bannon joins KX from TIBCO. Previously, he led sales for StreamBase Systems for several years prior to its acquisition by TIBCO and the integration of their streaming analytics offering.

LPA adds Mark Reeves as senior advisor

LPA Group, a provider in capital markets regtech, has announced that Mark Reeves will join the firm as a senior advisor.

Reeves will be based in London and his focus will be to accelerate growth in LPA’s American and British software and consulting businesses, building on the firm’s strong client base in continental Europe. He will help develop new solutions for the complex capital markets environments, market infrastructure providers, and the wider financial sector while building a team inside LPA.

Reeves was most recently European managing director at Flybits and before that, managing partner at Capco. Other senior roles include National Westminster Bank, Deloitte, TCA Consulting, and City Practitioners.

St. George reunites with ex-CME’s McElligott at Morningstar

Chicago-based data and research provider Morningstar has hired former CME exec Tim St. George as head of market data administration, focusing on market data licensing and compliance.

St. George was most recently VP of market data for exchanges and access compliance at Northern Trust, prior to which he ran his own market data consultancy, NorthPath Solutions. Before that, he spent 11 years at CME Group as executive director of information products, and previously served as a managing director at ticker plant vendor HyperFeed Technologies, and as director of institutional development at FutureSource and eSignal.

At Morningstar, St. George reports to former CME colleague Brian McElligott, who joined the vendor earlier this year as global head of market data products strategy.

Barclays index guru Watson joins The Index Standard

Index rating startup The Index Standard has hired Jay Watson as managing director and head of analytics, with responsibility for building out the company’s range of analytical tools for indexes and expanding its coverage to new areas, such as fixed-interest annuities and registered index-linked annuities, and environmental, social and governance products.

Watson has spent more than 20 years in interest-rate structuring and index design roles, and has been involved in every aspect of index development. Most recently, he was managing director at Barclays, where he spent 15 years, including as head of multi-asset structuring, director of rates structuring, and chair of the bank’s index oversight committee. Before that, he was a VP of rates structuring at Bank of America, and an interest rate structurer at Gen Re.

At The Index Standard, Watson reports to founder and Laurence Black, CEO.