People On The Move

Paula Mahoney recently retired as director of equity trading from the private wealth management division of BNY Mellon. Mahoney spent the last 15 years of her career in her current role at the Pittsburgh-based money manager. Before joining Mellon Bank, she spent eight years running trading at Key Asset Management in Cleveland. Mahoney started her securities career at Louisiana Bank & Trust, where she established a discount broker, and later went on to run broker-dealers within banks for nearly a decade. Mahoney has relocated to Chicago and says she is enjoying spending time with family and friends.   


Nomura Securities International, the U.S. broker-dealer division of the Nomura Group, hired Ciaran O’Kelly as managing director and head of equities, Americas. O’Kelly’s responsibilities include all liquid markets, derivatives and prime services at NSI. He is based in New York City and reports to Shigesuke Kashiwagi, chairman, president and chief executive of NSI and globally to Rachid Bouzouba, managing director and head of equities. O’Kelly joins NSI from Bank of America, where he was head of global equities for seven years. Prior to that, O’Kelly worked at Smith Barney/Citigroup for 11 years, finally as head of equity trading. O’Kelly hails from Ireland.  


Matthew Rowley joined CA Cheuvreux, the brokerage arm of Credit Agricole, as head of quantitative trading. He will lead CA Cheuvreux’s algorithmic trading initiative from its New York office. Rowley has more than 14 years of experience. Previously, he worked at Fidessa, where he was responsible for the design and product management of the vendor’s BlueBox algorithmic product, basket algorithms and pairs trading products.  


Retail and institutional broker StockCross Financial Services launched a U.S. market-making business. The firm added seven traders who specialize in over-the-counter securities from Hill, Thompson, Magid & Co.’s recently shuttered market-making group (see Inside Trading story).

All seven are based in Jersey City, N.J., where they make markets in Bulletin Board, Pink Sheets and small-cap names for institutional and retail customers. Each holds the same position.

Nicholas DeMaria, a managing director, leads the equities group. Anthony Gulemmo, a 15-year veteran, is a senior vice president who specializes in preferred/convertible trading. Tim Padala, a 15-year veteran, is a vice president who concentrates on bank stocks, as well as rare and inactive trading securities. Thaddeus Berdzik, a 10-year veteran, specializes in distressed equities/bankruptcy trading. Adam Piervincenzi and Matt Lomas focus on high-frequency Bulletin Board and Pink Sheets trading. Rob Alessi specializes in preferred and convertible trading. Jane LaGennusa, who joined the firm last year, concentrates on broker-dealer sales and trading.  


Alan Rubenfeld joins UBS as an executive director on the U.S. portfolio-trading desk in Stamford, Conn. Rubenfeld, a Wall Street veteran of more than 20 years in program trading, spent 18 months at BNP Paribas before joining UBS. Prior to that, he worked 10-plus years for Deutsche Bank. Rubenfeld reports to Kieran Kilkenny, also an executive director on the U.S. portfolio-trading desk. Rubenfeld is responsible for covering U.S. accounts.  


Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. has beefed up its derivatives department with the addition of five new sales and trading pros. The desk focuses on options, index options and ETFs. The nucleus of Bernstein’s expansion into derivatives is a three-man team from JPMorgan. But each of the five hires–three sales traders, one trader and a derivatives specialist–has about 15 years experience or more.

The group is headed by Steve Miller, a sales trader, who came from JPMorgan along with fellow sales trader John Karl and trader Matt Tym. The three worked together at Bear Stearns before joining JPMorgan. Bill Looney is the third derivatives sales trader hired. Looney joins Bernstein from Citi. Separately, Scott Jacobson joins as a derivatives specialist from Capstone Sales Advisors, where he was director of research. Jacobson’s role is to provide single-stock ideas and market volatility commentary. The five new hires join trader Ralph Edwards and sales trader Walter Lamerton on the desk. The desk reports to Thomas Wright, head of global trading. 


Patrick Morrissey joined Boston-based Seacoast Partners last month as a sales trader. Morrissey, a 17-year buyside veteran, traded equities for 10 yeas trading at the Boston Co. Asset Management. Morrissey’s hiring brings the number of sales traders on the desk to five at the agency execution shop.  


Dave Weisberger, formerly head of global electronic market access at Citi, has joined the hedge fund Two Sigma Investments. Weisberger was a longtime employee of Salomon Smith Barney who held many roles on the electronic trading side of Citi/Salomon, including some at Lava Trading. Two Sigma manages several billion dollars in assets using trading strategies based on statistical models developed with vast computational resources.  


Mary Lou Giustini joined Pipeline Trading Systems as director of sales in the firm’s Chicago office. Giustini, a 21-year veteran of institutional trading, was previously a managing director at Merrill Lynch in Chicago, where she co-managed its equity sales and product offering for the Midwest. She also sits on the Security Traders Association of Chicago’s board of directors and co-founded the Chicago Financial Women’s Association.  


Brokerage Jefferies & Co. hired Stephen Grahling as a managing director and head of the new event driven group in the firm’s equity sales and trading division. He directs trading and analysis of equities involved in mergers and acquisitions, distressed and other special situations related to corporate transactions and restructurings. He joins Jefferies from Citigroup, where he was a managing director and launched its event driven U.S. risk arbitrage trading desk. Michael Dorsey, a senior vice president and trader, also joined Jefferies’ event driven desk. He and Grahling will be the firm’s market makers in deal and event stocks. Most recently, Dorsey was a senior trader on the events driven Americas desk at Citi. For 10 years before that, he was a trader on the firm’s cash equity trading desk.  


Robert E. O’Brien joined agency brokerage BNY ConvergEx to expand its West Coast presence by opening and running a sales trading desk in San Francisco. He joins ConvergEx from Thomas Weisel Partners, where he was a sales trader, managing director and partner. O’Brien has more than 20 years of experience in equity and sales trading. Prior to his role at Thomas Weisel, O’Brien also worked at Bankers Trust, Prudential Securities and S.G. Cowen.  


Kevin Gardner joins WJB Capital Group as director of institutional equity sales and head of WJB Capital’s new Boston office. Before joining WJB, Gardner, a 14-year veteran, spent nine years at Natixis Bleichroeder as managing director of institutional sales. Gardner reports to Craig Rothfeld, the firm’s executive director.  

 

(c) 2009 Traders Magazine and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.tradersmagazine.com http://www.sourcemedia.com/