People Moves: Ultumus, Liquidnet, OpenDoor, MIX, Deutsche Börse

Managed ETF, Index Data Provider Ultumus Taps Ex-IHS Markit Exec for US Office

Ultumus, a UK-based provider of managed services for ETF and index data management, has opened its first US office in San Francisco in response to business growth in the US and Canada, and hired former IHS Markit executive Fe Zamora to run the office and build its US team and presence.

Zamora was most recently an associate director at IHS Markit, where she also served as senior client services specialist, having joined the vendor via Markit’s 2015 acquisition of regulatory reporting and data and index management software vendor CoreOne Technologies, where she was the data operations team lead for ots DeltaOne Solutions business.

She reports to London-based operations head Daniel Hodgetts, but worked previously with Ultumus CEO Bernie Thurston during her time at CoreOne, where Thurston was managing director for Europe.

Liquidnet CEO and Founder Steps Down

After almost two decades, the founder and CEO of Liquidnet, Seth Merrin, has announced he will step down from the role. Merrin will maintain his role as chairman as current president, Brian Conroy, who joined the company a year ago, will assume the responsibility of CEO and take over the firm.

As the company launches a new data and analytics business, Conroy will continue to lead the execution of all three Liquidnet business verticals: equities, fixed income and the newly created, investment analytics. Meanwhile, Merrin aims to focus on the firm’s mid to long-term strategy.

Having spent 30 years in the financial services industry, Conroy has held senior roles in J.P Morgan, Goldman Sachs, ABN Amro and was previously the president of Fidelity Capital Markets.

Conroy will continue to be based at Liquidnet’s global headquarters in New York.

OpenDoor Appoints New CTO

Carson Wong, former CIO of Fidelity Capital Markets, has joined OpenDoor, a broker-dealer and financial technology company. Wong’s role will be to assist in the product vision and roadmap for the company, working closely with OpenDoor’s co-founder, CEO and president Susan Estes.

As CIO of Fidelity, Wong was responsible for the firm’s US trading technology division and also oversaw the technology development of the Luminex Trading and analytics consortium. Mike Cashel, the then CEO of Luminex, worked closely with Wong on the project and later joined OpenDoor last September as COO.

OpenDoor’s current CTO, Michael Sacks, will retire in April after spending six years at the company.

In past roles, Wong spent six years as vice president at Lehman Brothers and global head of NASDAQ/OTC Equities Trading Systems as a software engineer for the equities trading technology division.

Miami International Holding Executive Elected Chairman of Bermuda Stock Exchange

Majority stock owner of the Bermuda Stock Exchange (BSX), Miami International Holdings, Inc. (MIH), has announced that Thomas P. Gallagher, chairman and CEO, has been elected chairman of the council of BSX. Gallagher will replace current chairman, David A. Brown, who will remain on the council as deputy chairman.

Gallagher has been with MIH, the parent holding company of the MIAX Exchange Group, for over 10 years and was one of the principal founders of the firm. Prior to this, he was a founding partner of the law firm Gallagher, Briody & Butler after gaining his J.D. from Capital University Law School. He also served on the Board of Trustees of The Hun School of Princeton from 2005 to 2014.

Eurex Clearing Expands Buy-Side Sales

Nick Barnes will take on the role of senior vice president for sales and relationship management and join Deutsche Börse Group on March 1. Barnes will be based in the London office reporting directly to head of fixed income derivatives funding and financing sales in northern Europe, Johnathan Lombardo. Barnes’ new role will focus his attention on Eurex Clearing’s buy-side initiative.

Previously, Barnes was a sales and business development lead at MarketAxess where he worked on their post-trade repo confirmation tool which connects the buy and sell-sides. Prior to that he spent 16 years at Barclays, working his way through a number of senior roles culminating his time there as a government bond repo trader.