POSITION KEEPING

Reuters Is All Penn(ed) In

Time to revise those organizational charts. Again. Reuters' Jeremy Penn, currently managing director, Asia, is to head a new operating unit to be known as Reuters Ventures, effective January 1. The division will sit alongside Reuters Information and Reuters Trading Systems organizationally. Reuters Ventures will be the vehicle for Reuters' activities in new media, including its relationship with Dow Jones Reuters Business Interactive LLC, Reuters' joint venture with Dow Jones, and the Reuters Greenhouse Fund, through which Reuters invests in high-tech companies. It will also seek to broaden Reuters' penetration beyond finance into areas like the corporate sector. In his new role, Penn will report to Rob Rowley, finance director. Penn will have three senior reports of his own: John Taysom, who leads Greenhouse Fund activities; Brad Hanson, responsible for investments outside of Greenhouse's high-tech remit; and Philip Melchior, who is responsible for promoting Reuters' content via third-party distribution channels, including the Internet and broadcast media. Meanwhile, the existing Asia region of Reuters' Global Sales & Operations group will be split in two this year. Reuters Japan will be led by Richard Pascoe, president, who will report to Maurizio Pescasolido, head of Reuters Information within GSO. Reuters has yet to name executives to lead the rest of the Asia division.

Delvecchico Gets His Liberty

John Delvecchio is now at Liberty Brokerage as vice president, responsible for all corporate technology services; "everything other than application technology," he says. Delvecchio left Merrill Lynch and his position as co-head of market data for Merrill's global market data group after a reorganization that aimed to decentralize operations. "There was a change of direction at Merrill," he says. But "the real reason" for his departure: "I really wanted to try working in a small company." And he says he's enjoying the challenges, the people and the direction at Liberty.

Merrill Lynch Staff Update

With a technology staff that tops 5,000, this might become something of a running column. Here's the latest:

-Ed Dwyer has become vice president of architecture and strategy for Merrill Lynch Asset Management Group in Princeton, NJ, leaving his role as vice president of technical services for Hotchkis and Wiley, Merrill's institutional subsidiary in Los Angeles.

-David Lara is filling Dwyer's shoes. As such, he's trading in his Barbie dolls for bond funds--Lara previously led the global infrastructure and technology organization for toymaker Mattel.

-Robert Gregorio is now in charge of direct markets for Merrill's corporate and institutional client group and reports to that unit's chief technology officer, Chris Corrado, himself a relatively recent arrival. Gregorio was previously in charge of technology for derivatives trading and risk management operations at Merrill.

-James P. Gorman has come on board as executive vice president and chief marketing officer, a newly created position, effective July 19. He's working to establish global marketing alliances as well as new initiatives to support Internet-based financial services for individual and institutional investors. He'll also serve on Merrill's executive management committee.

-In London, Angela Whiting has left her position as senior market data analyst at Deutsche Bank to become market data team leader at Merrill, reporting to global market data manager Mike Bentley.

-At Merrill Lynch Asset Management, Brian Fullerton, previously senior vice president for risk management at Putnam Investments, has been named director of risk management.

-Merrill Lynch Mercury Asset Management in London has hired Chris Smith to investigate Triarch backbone issues and work on projects involving the company's trading systems. Smith was a market data project manager for Sumitomo Finance.

ABN Amro Baars All

ABN Amro has appointed Walter Baars as senior executive vice president in its risk management division, effective October 1. He will be responsible for risk management in Europe. Baars fills the position of Bram Deknatel, who is retiring. Baars was previously executive vice president of global relationship management at the bank. In other news, Peter Casey, senior executive vice president, international relationship management in the international division of ABN Amro, has left his post in the Netherlands to pursue a career outside the bank.

Cirillo Goes Deutsche

Amid the post-acquisition shakeup, Mary Cirillo, the former Citibanker and more recently Bankers Trust executive, was named CEO of the Global Institutional Services (GIS) division of Deutsche Bank. She reports to Hermann-Josef Lamberti, head of Deutsche's Global Technology and Services (GTS) group. Cirillo takes most of her team along with her, including Steve Soltis and Roberta Sonenfeld, both of whom she hired shortly after she joined Bankers Trust in 1997. They join Deutsche Bank's Wolfgang Gaertner. Soltis is managing director, investor services, with responsibility for structured investment management, retirement services, securities lending, global performance measurement, investment administration, strategic advisory, discount brokerage and the WM Co., the performance measurement service bureau based in Edinburgh. Gaertner and Sonenfeld, both managing directors, co-head GIS Operations, with Gaertner supervising global cash operations and Sonenfeld in charge of securities operations. Their direct reports include Rolf Graf and Lisa Robbins, co-heads of the information technology group. The head of custody services, a key business line for serving buy-side clients, will be Roger Booth. Other business unit heads reporting to Cirillo include David Hinds, head of global cash management; Larry Klane, head of corporate trust and agency services; and Tim Keaney, head of global origination and client management. The GIS technology group is distinct from the corporate technology group within the larger GTS organization, although some of their staff and functions overlap.

Jeffrey Alights At Neon; Swift Crowns King

Douglas Jeffrey has left his post as regional director of North America for The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift) to become Neon's president of global financial services. "Doug's six years at Swift give him deep insight into the technology needs of large financial institutions," says Neon CEO Rick Adam. "Swift has over 5,000 members worldwide who participate in one of the largest e-business networks in existence." Jeffrey's post has since been filled by Michael King, who was promoted from his position as regional director for Asia/Pacific. In that role, he oversaw sizeable growth in annual message traffic (about 18 percent per year) as well as the opening of new offices in Beijing and Sydney. King, who will be based in New York, will be responsible for 1,300 customers throughout the US, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. He previously held various posts at Standard Chartered Bank.

Doing Data Duty

Andrew Baumel has taken on market data responsibility for North America at Banque Paribas, replacing David Pettee, who is now market data manager at WestLB. Baumel, who reports to Demetris Hatzoulis, was most recently at Lehman Brothers, where he was a vice president in the market data department.

Holmes Finds a New Home

Hubert Holmes has found a new, well, home. The former chief executive of scandal-scarred fixed income Reuters subsidiary, Reuters Analytics, has joined Cicada Corp. Holmes had been with Reuters for 12 years, most recently as executive vice president and executive director, responsible for the global product marketing of Reuters' equities and fixed income products. But he may be better known for his association with Reuters Analytics, the subject of a US grand jury probe. That investigation (which has since been dropped) centered on allegations that Reuters had hired a third-party consulting firm, Cyberspace Research Associates, to download a massive number of pages from rival Bloomberg. This information was allegedly used to reverse-engineer Bloomberg analytics and models. Since the disclosure of the investigation early last year, Holmes and his two senior aides were placed on paid leave and worked from home. But now Holmes begins at Cicada with a clean slate--and a brand-new client. The grand jury cleared Reuters Analytics of all charges in July, and Deutsche Bourse has chosen Cicada to help develop a new feed handling and information distribution architecture for delivery and packaging of its market data services. Holmes joins former DJ Markets executive Gregory Smith, who founded Cicada in May 1998. Oklahoma City-based Cicada aims to provide marketing consulting services and software solutions for information distribution and transaction management to exchanges, investment managers, broker/dealers and other financial market participants.

Austin and Watteeuw Go to the Edge

Trading Edge, that is. Ex-BancBoston Securities managing director Kenneth Austin and former CSFB managing director Caroline Watteeuw have joined the electronic debt trading service. Austin is senior vice president in charge of Trading Edge's move into emerging markets, and Watteeuw is executive vice president and CTO. The emerging market debt trading service is slated to go live by year-end. "We are seeing clients already," says Trading Edge president and COO Brad Levie. Trading Edge currently offers Bond Link, a high-yield corporate bond trading service that went live in April. But this new service will allow investors to trade international issues via the Internet. Austin, who headed BancBoston's emerging markets sales desk, will build the sales, marketing and support functions of the new service. Watteeuw, meanwhile, is focusing on getting the infrastructure in place to launch that service. She's also charged with enhancing Bond Link, setting strategic direction and overseeing operations, including the firm's move into new digs in New York and Santa Monica. And she wants to add 15 to 20 people to Trading Edge's IT department.

Reuters Goes Green

Reuters has lured Philip Green away from DHL International to lead the Reuters Trading Systems (RTS) division. Green will oversee each of the RTS operating units, including Reuters' Securities Transactions Services, though not Instinet, which remains a separate division outside of RTS. He is currently chief operating officer, Europe and Africa for DHL International in Brussels, where he oversees activities in 118 countries and a whopping 20,000 staff. Green takes office in September and will work with David Ure on a transition through the end of the year. Ure, the executive director who had been running RTS on an interim basis since last year, will now work to exploit the potential of the Internet and e-commerce for Reuters' existing businesses, including information, transactions and other product types.

Applegate Is Still Ajar

Chief information officer George Kenney resigned from San Diego-based asset manager Nicholas Applegate on the heels of Cooper Noone's departure in April. Noone was assistant vice president and manager of application development. And while some sources suggest that Kenney and Noone are just the tip of the exodus iceberg at Applegate, a spokesperson maintains otherwise. The spokesperson says Applegate currently has an IT staff of 71, with three hires pending. That leaves levels little changed from the start of the year, when Applegate had 80 IT employees. Chief operating officer John McDonnell is leading the search for a new CIO. In the meantime, David Aldea of Phoenix-based Perform Consulting is filling the slot on an interim basis.

Cuffe Daddy in the CSFB House

Dana Cuffe, former IT director at Global Asset Management, has joined Credit Suisse First Boston as chief operating officer for its London operations center, a new position. He will be responsible for CSFB's IT strategy and will report to Frank Fanzilli, chief information officer, and Steve Long, chief operating officer in New York. Cuffe will not be replaced at Global Asset Management; instead, his duties will be divided among existing staffers.

Life After Dow Jones

A group of former Dow Jones executives have banded together to create an online news service called Vertinews.com. The New Jersey-based company is headed by William Dunn, a one-time contender to the Dow Jones throne and now chairman of Vertinews, and Craig Allsopp, president and chief executive of Vertinews and a former international marketing executive and vice president of Dow Jones News Services. Other refugees from Dow Jones include Charles Brady, once a vice president of technology at Dow Jones; Everett Groseclose, ex-managing editor of Dow Jones News service; and James Furlong, a former managing editor of AP-Dow Jones. But they won't be competing with their former employer. Vertinews is "pointing its guns in one direction" at slices of the industry rather than offering general coverage, says Allsopp. The idea is to offer real-time newswires with in-depth information within certain specialized vertical market segments. Allsopp says Vertinews is looking to cover markets in five general areas: finance, public sector, technology, media and health care. The first product, focusing on commercial real estate, is scheduled to launch in August. Vertinews.com plans to distribute its services through a number of channels, including the major market data vendors and its own Website.