People moves

PEOPLE MOVES

Frohberg, Christian Richter and Felix Echtermeyer. Sebastian Schmidt and Maurice Kirst, who spearheaded the initial efforts in late 2021, will also be a part of the team.

The new retail flow business team will work closely with head of markets Steven Downey and chief executive officer Lukas Ruflin.

The two heads are European structured products market experts with a breadth of experience in derivatives trading at Commerzbank and Société Générale (SG), according to the memo. Seifried was most recently head of markets for Germany and head of listed products trading at Société Générale (SG) after working for 20 years at Commerzbank, where he served as head of equity markets & commodities (EMC) prior to the EMC business transfer to the French bank in 2019.

Hermann started at Commerzbank as a financial engineer in 1995 and became a structured products trader in 2000. From 2002 to 2020, his positions spanned deputy head flow trading, head of single stock flow products trading and head of linear products trading. At SG, he was head of linear products trading from 2020 to 2022.

Luma bolsters Latam coverage

Luma Financial Technologies (Luma) has announced the appointment of Pablo Ortega as head of Latam relationships, based in Luma’s New York office.

Ortega joins the multi-issuer platform with over a decade of experience providing derivative-based solutions to institutional clients, financial institutions, and private client investors in Latin America that involve OTC derivatives, structured products, funds, and other securitized investments. Prior to joining Luma, Ortega served as a director at Citigroup, and an analyst with Morgan Stanley.

Ortega is the third Citi executive to join Luma since the firm entered the Latin America market in the fall of 2020. Luma previously appointed Fernando Concha Bambach as head of Latam and Rafael Salvatierra as head of Americas to drive growth in the region.

MerQube appoints chief commercial officer Citi

US index provider MerQube has appointed Roby Muntoni as chief commercial officer.

Muntoni (pictured) will be responsible for MerQube’s commercial growth, aligning the growth of its technology with the demands of a rapidly changing investment landscape. Based in New York, he reports to CEO Vinit Srivastava.

Muntoni has over 25 years of experience in the asset management industry, with a proven track record of leading commercial growth strategies globally, with long term revenuegenerating potential. She joins from S&P Dow Jones Indices where he spent the last 13 years, most recently as managing director, institutional asset owners channel sales. Prior to that she was vice president, co-head of North America sales.

Muntoni joined S&P DJI from Bear Stearns & Company where she was managing director, product services and she was also a vice president, product development at BNY Mellon.

In October 2021, MerQube closed the series A funding round led by J.P. Morgan, raising US$5 million. Prior to that, MerQube had raised US$2 million in its seed rounds. Among MerQube’s recent accomplishments are the US Tech + Vol Advantage Index, linked to one of the most successful structured notes, in 2021. MerQube is also a benchmark provider for defined outcome ETFs issued in the USA. Médéric Gehl, director, head of delta one and retail solutions for Apac at Citibank, has relocated to Singapore from Hong Kong for “personal reasons” in June, a spokesperson at the US bank told SRP. Gehl (pictured) continues to report to Cyrille Troublaiewitch, co-head of equity derivatives distribution and multi-asset group for Apac based in Hong Kong.

Prior to joining Citi in August 2017, Gehl was equity derivatives solution sales for Asia ex-Japan at Deutsche Bank in Singapore for one year after spending two years at Natixis with a similar sales role covering Southeast Asia and Australia. He kicked off his career at BNP Paribas in 2004 and left 10 years later with his last role as executive director, commodity investment & strategic equity for Apac.

The US bank has also announced the appointment of John Williams as a director and head of UK wealth planning at Citi Private Bank in London, reporting to Robert Stemmons, head of trust & wealth planning, Emea.

Williams will work with the UK market region bankers, investment counsellors and other product specialists to deliver a bespoke wealth planning service to clients Williams was most recently head of wealth planning at Nedbank Private Wealth. Prior to this he was head of wealth planning at Credit Suisse UK, and previously held senior positions at Barclays and UBS.

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