January 2, 2014

Noll Leaves Nasdaq for ConvergEx

By

Phil Albinus

Nasdaq OMX Group's Eric Noll, who oversaw the exchange's U.S. trading business during a glitch-prone reign, has left to join ConvergEx Group as president, effective immediately.

According to a ConvergEx press statement, Noll will "transition to the additional position of chief executive officer at year-end, succeeding current CEO Joseph M. Velli, who will continue to serve on the ConvergEx Group board."

Noll served as executive vice president of U.S. and U.K. transaction services for Nasdaq, which he joined in 2009. During his tenure, Nasdaq experienced a number of high-profile trading outages, including the mishandled Facebook IPO in 2011, when Nasdaq could not fulfill orders for the trading debut of the social media giant. Nasdaq eventually had to pay a $10 million penalty for the trading outage-a record fine for any exchange, according to media reports-and tens of millions of dollars to investment firms that lost money that day.

Eric Noll

Nasdaq also suffered a complete trading outage last August, when it was unable to trade for more than three hours, which had an impact on thousands of investment firms.

Bloomberg reports that "Noll joined New York-based Nasdaq four years ago from Susquehanna International Group LLP, and the company's share price has about doubled since then, twice the gain in the Bloomberg World Exchanges Index of 26 bourse operators."

Noll's departure was reported initially by Fox Business Network.

"We are very pleased to have attracted someone of Eric's high caliber to become president and CEO-elect of ConvergEx, and the board and I look forward to working closely with him to effect a smooth transition of leadership," said Velli.

He added, "Eric is a proven, highly respected executive with strong leadership skills, outstanding judgment and targeted experience within the global securities industry that will provide immediate benefits to our company and our customers."

Noll expressed his gratitude in his new position in a company press statement. "ConvergEx is a strong company with a bright future, and I am deeply honored to become part of this organization. One of my top priorities will be to demonstrate to our customers that we are a company that stands for strong values, transparency and, above all, putting customers' interests first," he said.

Noll added, "I look forward to working with the company's board, its talented management team and their more than 600 employees as we continue to serve the best interests of our customers worldwide."

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