People moves: Asia hires at Credit Suisse, new UBS data role, NatWest takes UBS’s Duclos, and more

Credit Suisse has hired its former head of Asian equity structuring and brought in a senior salesperson from Standard Chartered in a bid to boost its regional solutions business.

According to internal announcements seen by Risk.net and confirmed by Credit Suisse, Charles Firth – the bank’s former head of Asia-Pacific equity structuring – has rejoined the Swiss bank as a managing director in the Asia-Pacific solutions sales team. Firth left to co-found Hong Kong-based Rafiki Capital Management with colleague Lucas Kiely in September 2016 after spending seven years at Credit Suisse.

He joined the bank in 2009 from UBS, where he was head of Asian equity structuring. He also previously worked in Barclays’ capital solutions sales team.

Credit Suisse has also hired Martin Cher from Standard Chartered, where he was head of financial market sales for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations region and Australia, and head of financial markets for Singapore. He joins Credit Suisse as head of solutions sales for the Asean region. Cher has more than 25 years of experience, including 18 years at Goldman Sachs, where he ran the sales business of the bank’s South-east Asia securities division.

The appointments come three months after the Swiss bank re-hired Min Park to run the Asia-Pacific solutions sales team. Park was Credit Suisse’s Asia-Pacific head of equity derivatives and convertibles sales, but left in 2013 to become global head of equity derivatives and convertibles sales at Standard Chartered. He left the UK-headquartered bank in January 2017 for a stint at Hong Kong investment manager Three Stones Capital.

UBS has named its head of research to a new role as group head of data analytics.

Juan-Luis Perez will retain his existing role as group head of research, adding the data analytics role on top. In that new capacity, he will report directly to chief executive Sergio Ermotti.

The role will cover the bank’s existing ‘Evidence Lab’ product, in which it undertakes custom analysis for its own analysts and sells alternative data, but UBS is also known to be exploring the idea of selling anonymised client data.

UBS recently transferred its Evidence Lab from its research division to become a central repository for data services for all its investment banking businesses. Perez will also “explore how this unit can be used to service all business divisions”, the bank says.

The Swiss bank has also hired Imene Moussa from Credit Suisse to develop and execute quantitative investment strategies and structure off-balance-sheet products in the Asian region. Moussa joined in November as an executive director in Hong Kong and reports to Felix Maratier, Asia-Pacific head of equities structuring, according to a spokesperson at the Swiss bank.

Moussa spent 11 years at Credit Suisse in London in the equity derivatives and structuring team. Prior to that, she spent two years as a structurer and fund manager at Lyxor Asset Management.

Eric Duclos is set to join NatWest Markets as head of US dollar linear rates trading. Duclos will join from BNP Paribas, where he was most recently head of US interest rate swaps trading.

Duclos joined the French bank in 2002 as a quantitative analyst, and moved into his most recent role in 2014. Based in New York, he reported to David Moore, head of G10 rates Americas at BNP Paribas.

Effective February 2019, Duclos will be based in Stamford, Connecticut and will report to Alan Mittleman, head of US dollar rates trading.

BNP Paribas and Natwest Markets declined to comment on the move.

Societe Generale has hired Hussein Dbouk, former head of sovereign credit default swap trading at HSBC, to become managing director of credit trading in London, according to sources familiar with the matter. Before HSBC, Dbouk was director of indexes and sovereign credit default swap trading at Citi.

Deutsche Bank’s James Davies is relocating to New York from London to become head of fixed income in the Americas, and co-head of sales and trading in the Americas with Peter Selman, a source confirms. He will report to Yanni Pipilis and Tom Patrick. Davies is currently head of emerging market debt at Deutsche.

Investment bank Jefferies has hired Fred Jallot as head of fixed income in Europe. Based in London, Jallot will report to Fred Orlan, global head of fixed income. Jallot replaces Tim Cronin, who will continue his role as president of Jefferies’ London operations. Jallot starts in the new year, and joins from Nomura, where he was global head of credit and asset-backed securities for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Markus Ronner has also joined UBS’s group executive board, as head of group compliance, regulatory and governance. Ronner joined in 1981, and is currently head of group regulatory and governance.

Anupama Agarwal is joining BNP Paribas’s foreign exchange, local markets and commodities team in New York, where she is expected to focus on foreign exchange hedge fund sales. Agarwal will report to Luis Berlfein, head of the team. Agarwal joins the French bank from Barclays, where she held a variety of posts for more than 13 years.

Alex Shterenberg has been made global head of G10 and emerging markets e-forex trading at Barclays. New York-based Shterenberg was most recently global head of forex algorithmic execution and head of e-forex trading at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which he joined in 2013.

Paul Scott has taken up a new role as head of e-forex at ANZ in Sydney, Australia. Scott began his trading career at NAB in 1996. He joined Commerzbank in 2007, rising to global head of spot forex e-trading, based in Singapore. He left the German lender in 2017, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Stater Global Markets, a prime brokerage, has appointed Ashraf Agha as a strategic adviser based in London. Agha has held several senior roles during his 30-year career in financial markets, including head of treasury at Saxo Bank, where he was a director from 2000 onwards.

William Johns has joined Capula Investment Management as a London-based portfolio manager, reporting to David Sobotka, head of macro trading. Johns joins the UK hedge fund from Nomura, where he was head of correlation trading for eight years. He joined Nomura in Singapore in 2011, as an emerging markets foreign exchange options trader, before moving to London to build the correlation book.

Asset manager BlackRock has promoted Geraldine Buckingham to head of BlackRock Asia-Pacific. Buckingham is currently head of corporate strategy, and prior to joining BlackRock, was a partner at McKinsey. She relocates to Hong Kong from New York.

Buckingham replaces Ryan Stork, who becomes deputy global chief operating officer, based in New York. Stork joined BlackRock in 1999, and has held positions such as head of the Aladdin operating system, and deputy head of business for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Both begin their roles in February 2019.

Ed Collinge will become global head of insurance strategy at Robeco, the Netherlands-based asset manager. Collinge was previously head of the European institutional insurance team at Invesco, and prior to that he was part of the insurance desk at JP Morgan Asset Management. He will be based in London, reporting to Christoph von Reiche, head of global distribution and marketing.

Wells Fargo Asset Management has hired Joseph Wong as a senior solutions manager, based in San Francisco. In the role, Wong will design investment portfolios. He reports to Jonathan Hobbs, head of US portfolio solutions. Wong was previously a director in the asset allocation team at Ameriprise Financial. Before that, he worked at BlackRock within the multi-asset portfolio and investment consulting team.

Richard Gray is to join Dolfin, a wealth management platform, as head of investment management, a newly created role. Gray joins from asset manager ACPI, where he was co-head of Institutional Wealth Management. Before ACPI, he was at Credit Suisse, where he was head of the Special Situations team and co-head of the Multi-Asset Group.

Nigel Higgins will become chairman of Barclays in May 2019 when John McFarlane retires. The appointment is subject to approval by UK banking authorities. Higgins was deputy chairman at Rothschild, previously serving on the group’s executive committee.

Debbie Crosbie has been named chief executive officer of UK’s TSB Bank. She replaces Paul Pester, who resigned in September after the bank suffered a widespread IT failure. She will start in 2019, pending regulatory approval. In the meantime, Richard Meddings will continue as executive chairman. Crosbie’s previous role was chief operating officer of the group that runs Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks, joining in 1997 and overseeing the implementation of its own online platform.

Isabel Ucha will become chief executive officer of stock exchange Euronext when current chief Paulo Rodrigues da Silva steps down at the end of the year. The appointment is subject to shareholder and regulatory approval. Ucha joined Euronext in 2007, before which she worked in consultancy and as economic adviser to the Portuguese prime minister.

Deutsche Bank’s investment management arm, DWS Group, has named Asoka Woehrmann as the new chief executive officer. He also becomes senior group director for the asset management team. Woehrmann takes over from Nicolas Moreau, who leaves at end of the year. Woehrmann first joined Deutsche Bank in 1998.

The European Central Bank has nominated Andrea Enria as head of its supervision department. He will oversee the largest eurozone banks, ensuring they are compliant with relevant rules and standards. The appointment has been approved by the European Parliament and is awaiting confirmation from the EU Council. If successful, he will assume duties on January 1 from the incumbent Danièle Nouy.

Enria is currently head of the European Banking Authority, the bloc’s standard-setter for banks. He has led the EBA since 2011, before which he was head of the regulation and supervisory policy department at the Bank of Italy.

Andrew Gracie has left the Bank of England to join consultancy Deloitte. In his new role as a special adviser, Gracie will help support bank clients on their resolution planning, including work on recovery and resilience. Gracie spent 30 years at the UK central bank, most recently as head of the resolution unit.

During his time at the BoE, he also chaired the Financial Stability Board’s working group on resolution.

The Financial Stability Board, the global body set up to co-ordinate national financial authorities, has appointed a new chair and vice-chair. Randal Quarles and Klaas Knot take up the posts, respectively, on a three-year term starting on December 2. Quarles is a US Federal Reserve board member, where he serves as vice-chairman for supervision. Knot heads the Dutch central bank, De Nederlandsche Bank.

Tushar Morzaria will become the new chair of the Bank of England’s working group on sterling risk-free reference rates. He is currently group finance director at Barclays, a role he will continue. Morzaria replaces François Jourdain, who has chaired the group since it was formed in 2015. Jourdain will step down at the start of January. The working group on sterling risk-free reference rates was set up to develop alternative benchmarks to Libor. It recommended Sonia as its preferred risk-free rate in 2017.

Dan Berkovitz, recently appointed commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the US derivatives regulator, has made two additions to his staff: Erik Remmler as chief of staff; and Lucy Hynes as special counsel. Remmler joined the CFTC in 2010, following an 18-year stint practising capital markets law. Hynes joins from the regulator’s enforcement division, where she was a senior trial attorney.

Tim Eyles has become the new group chairman of Parker Fitzgerald, a consultancy that advises financial institutions. He was previously UK managing partner and international board member at law firm Taylor Wessing. His new role is London-based.

Cloud Margin, a fintech company that provides collateral management services, has hired Daniel Schwartz as chief information officer in charge of product, technology and client operations. Based in New York, he reports to chief executive officer Steve Husk. Schwartz joins from NatWest Markets, where he was managing director.

Trading technology firm QuantHouse has hired Emmanuel Carjat as chief operating officer. Carjat was the co-founder of Atrium Network, a middleware provider. He spent nine years at the company, latterly as managing director, before leaving in 2015.  

Plenitude, a consultancy specialising in financial crime risk and compliance, has made Steve Vinnicombe non-executive director. Vinnicombe is the former UK and South Africa chief executive of consultancy Capco, which he joined in 2010.

Financial messaging service Swift has hired Cate Kemp as head of UK, Ireland and Nordics. Kemp joins from Lloyds Banking Group, where she was global transaction compliance director. She will be based in London.

Steve Smith has been made partner in the corporate crime and investigations team at law firm Eversheds Sutherland. Smith was previously at Japanese bank Nomura, where he was deputy head of financial crime for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

He has also been a senior lawyer in the enforcement division at the UK Financial Conduct Authority, and worked in Barclays within the financial crime team.

Additional reporting by Julia Bahr, Mikael Latreille, Laura Matthews, Narayanan Somasundaram, Eva Szalay