Northill Capital, a London-based asset manager, hired Ravi Thakur as head of Americas distribution. Thakur will oversee the opening its first U.S. office in New York. He will also be responsible for distribution of Northill investment strategies to U.S.-based institutions and consultants. Thakur joins Northill from Amundi Asset Management USA, where he had been head of distribution since 2011. Previously, Thakur was with BNY Mellon Asset Management, where he was head of its separately managed account business and offshore distribution for BNY Mellon/Dreyfus in New York. Before that, he was country manager for Mellon in Luxembourg.
Eric Le Brusq was appointed global head of equity derivatives sales at Natixis Global Asset Management, starting March 10, 2014. Based in London, he will report to Selim Mehrez, global head of equity derivatives at Wholesale Banking Global Markets. Le Brusq began his career at CIC as junior analyst in mergers & acquisitions. In 1994, he joined the equity derivatives department of Societe; Generale CIB in Paris where he was appointed European head of sales for equity derivatives structured products in 2001. In 2005, he joined BNP Paribas as global head of equity sales, cash and derivatives, as well as commodities sales.
E-distribution firm Caplin Systems announced John Ashworth as its new chief operating officer. Ashworth, a veteran with more than 30 years' experience, takes responsibility for global sales and marketing. He has worked at IBM, FENICS, GFI, Apama, FXall and most recently Thomson Reuters. He is based in Caplin's London office.
Samuel Hikspoors joined Atlanta-based money manager Invesco Ltd. as senior quantitative researcher in its global trading department. Hikspoors was previously a quantitative researcher at RGM Advisors, responsible for developing high-frequency trading and statistical-arbitrage strategies. Hikspoors holds a Ph.D in mathematical finance from University of Toronto and will report to Saurabh Srivastava, who reports to Kevin Cronin.
Hans-Ole Jochumsen will oversee the newly created Global Market Services division inside the Nasdaq OMX group. This division will oversee exchange company's transactions, clearing and settlement services in the U.S. and Europe and Jochumsen will report directly to CEO Bob Greifeld. The mission of GMS is to grow and expand the exchanges cash and derivatives business within equities as well as fixed income, currencies and commodities (FICC), and enable greater customer focus, product development and technology synergies. Jochumsen previously oversaw NASDAQ OMX's Transaction Services Nordic business which provides an integrated marketplace of eight independent Nordic and Baltic exchanges as well as trading and clearing (for derivatives and OTC) of Nordic and Baltic securities. Jochumsen is also responsible for NASDAQ OMX Commodities, the global commodities business unit within the company, encompassing among other things the trading and clearing of financial products on the world's largest power exchange.
Instinet announced that Jonathan Kellner has taken over the chief executive reins from Fumiki Kondo. Kondo has been chosen to lead Nomura Asset Management's overseas client division in Tokyo. Prior to being named chief executive, Kellner served as head of Instinets Americas businesses. He joined the Nomura Group in 2003 and moved to Instinet in 2007 following Nomuras acquisition of the company. Kellner previously held senior trading and technology positions at Charles Schwab, Investment Technology Group and Morgan Stanley.
Dallas-based agency-only broker Capis has named Mark Viani as director of managed accounts solutions for its new wrap trading business. Viani is a 28-year pro and he most recently worked as managing director in Cowens electronic products group.
