People Moves: TP Icap, Nasdaq, CFTC, and more

Instinet’s Govoni to head up TP Icap’s agency execution division

TP Icap, an electronic market infrastructure and information provider, has hired Mark Govoni as chief executive officer of its agency execution division. Govoni replaces John Ruskin, who has decided to step away from the business after leading the integration of Liquidnet into the TP Icap Group. Ruskin will stay with the group until the end of June to ensure an orderly transition.

TP Icap’s agency execution division is formed from the Liquidnet and Coex Partners brands. The two businesses provide trading services across a broad range of asset classes to a client base of asset managers, asset owners, and hedge funds.

Govoni joins TP Icap from Instinet, where he served most recently as president of US brokerage, having previously held the role of head of US sales trading. Prior to Instinet, he was a managing director at Nomura Securities International, responsible for US execution services. Earlier in his career, he held senior program and electronic sales trading positions at Merrill Lynch.

Govoni will be based in New York and will report directly to TP Icap group chief executive officer, Nicolas Breteau.

Nasdaq elects three board directors to US exchange subsidiaries

Nasdaq has elected three directors to the boards of the US exchanges operated by the company, which include the Nasdaq Stock Market, Nasdaq PHLX, Nasdaq BX, Nasdaq ISE, Nasdaq MRX, and Nasdaq GEMX.

They are Kathlyn Card Beckles, current chief legal officer and corporate secretary at Verisk Analytics; Anne Marie Darling, a partner and head of multi-asset platform sales at Goldman Sachs’ global markets division; and Elizabeth Wideman, senior vice president and senior deputy general counsel at Comcast Corporation.

CFTC commissioner announces staff appointments

Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero has named Nora Flood and Philip W. Raimondi as members of her executive staff. Both will serve as senior counsel and policy advisors.

Flood joins from the CFTC’s legal division, bringing nearly a decade of CFTC experience to her new role. Most recently, she served as a senior assistant general counsel, focusing on legislative and intergovernmental matters, including legislative matters relating to digital assets. She also spent several years with the chief counsel’s office of the CFTC’s division of market oversight, providing legal support and guidance to the director and division staff on a range of issues relating to the CFTC’s oversight of derivatives markets. Flood also served as a special counsel with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s division of trading and markets, where she supported the implementation of the new regulatory regime for security-based swap dealers.

Raimondi joins from the legal division’s regulatory group, where he served as a senior assistant general counsel of the agency. In this role, Philip provided regulatory counsel to the commission and across divisional leadership, primarily focused on complex and novel product and jurisdictional matters. As part of this role, Philip was the legal division’s primary contact for all digital asset and climate risk-related product inquiries.

LME’s Chamberlain to stay on as CEO, Farnham to retire in July

Matthew Chamberlain, chief executive officer of the London Metal Exchange (LME) and group head of commodities, will remain in his position, the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Group announced. He was to join Komainu, a custody business start-up for digital assets backed by Nomura and hedge fund manager, Alan Howard.

Adrian Farnham, who deferred retirement to act as interim CEO while Chamberlain’s successor was identified, will step down as CEO of LME Clear in July. Farnham joined LME Clear in 2013 as chief operating officer, overseeing the building and eventually the day-to-day running of LME Clear. In January 2016, he was appointed LME Clear CEO and has since driven both the strategic development of the clearinghouse, while also leading the technology refresh program currently underway at the LME group level.

Additionally, Catherine Lester, current LME group chief financial officer, will be leaving to pursue further career interests. Tabitha Silverwood, the LME’s current acting CFO, will succeed her. Silverwood has been at the LME since 2014, first as head of external reporting and then as head of finance since 2019.

Dowd returns to TMX to lead data product strategy

Canadian exchange group TMX has appointed Dominic Dowd managing director of product strategy for data and analytics within the exchange’s Datalinx information services division.

Dowd, who previously worked at TMX as director of TMX Market Insights and senior product manager for the exchange’s data strategy between 2001 and 2016, was most recently the North American director at management consultancy Shoreline. Prior to that, he ran his own data strategy consulting firm, Palisades Advisors, where he worked with alternative data advisory firm AltHub, and spent almost three years as director of enterprise services at the CPP (Canadian Pension Plan) Investment Board. Before his first stint at TMX, he was a team leader at Thomson Reuters (now Refinitiv), managing teams of analysts responsible for various datasets.

Based in Toronto, he reports to Michelle Tran, president of TMX Datalinx.

IQ-EQ appoints new group chief risk officer

Sally Alayarian has been named the group chief risk officer for global investor services firm IQ-EQ. She will be based in the Netherlands and will join IQ-EQ’s group management team. Her main responsibilities will include overseeing the group’s current risk management and compliance frameworks and promoting the group’s focus on risk conduct and culture.

With more than 20 years of international management experience in financial services, she joins after spending six years at TMF Group, a professional services firm based in Amsterdam, as global director for risk management and internal audit.

Kaffl joins SmartStream RDU to manage increased demand for reference data services

SmartStream Technologies, a financial transaction lifecycle management solutions provider, has hired Scott Kaffl as global head of business development for SmartStream RDU (Reference Data Utility). Kaffl will continue to grow the SmartStream RDU business by onboarding new clients who need reference data services to meet complex data and regulatory reporting requirements.

He joins SmartStream from Refinitiv, where he was an account director, looking after asset management, wealth management, and regional bank customers. He previously managed a sales team at Dun & Bradstreet within its third-party risk and compliance division. He also held several posts at Thomson Reuters for over 14 years, including managing sales for pricing and reference data as well as risk and compliance solutions. Other posts included working for Bloomberg in sales and account management.

Kaffl will be based in New York and will report to Linda Coffman, executive vice president for SmartStream RDU.