People moves

Citi

Citi has appointed Flavio Figueiredo as global head of corporate sales & solutions within the bank’s markets division in New York. In his new role Figueiredo (pictured) will drive coordinated coverage of corporate and public sector clients across all markets products. He will work with product heads in the banking, capital markets and advisory division, commercial banking solutions & services and treasury and trade solutions to deliver execution services and solutions.

The new role is an expansion of his prior role as global head of rates & currencies corporate sales and solutions, said the bank.

Steve Roti, head of strategic equity solutions, Ron Ruffini and Yoven Moorooven, co-heads of commodities corporate sales and structuring, will now report to Figueiredo, in addition to their pre-existing reporting lines.

Ashurst

Ashurst has appointed Evan Hillman as counsel in its global structured products practice, based in New York. He will report to Lloyd Harmetz, a partner in the global structured products practice. Harmetz (pictured) has driven new investment to grow the firm’s New York team and US securities law capabilities since joining in 2021.

Prior to joining Ashurst, Hillman was a senior managing associate at Sidley Austin, which included a secondment to Goldman Sachs, as well as serving as counsel in the Mergers & Acquisitions group at Royal Bank of Canada (RBC).

Hillman has broad experience advising clients on registered and unregistered structured note offerings, systemic trading strategies, ensuring that new underliers and investment products meet suitability and disclosure requirements, negotiating dealer and commercial agreements, and general securities and compliance issues, stated the law firm.

Lionel Phillips-Franjou (pictured) has been appointed as director, Apac head of complex structuring, multi-asset group at Citi. Based in Hong Kong SAR, he reports to Mario Serafino, managing director, Apac head of multi asset group, equity derivatives sales and solutions for financial intermediaries since October 2022. Phillips-Franjou has been tasked with designing, promoting and implementing structuring solutions for Citi’s clients in Apac, with a focus on Citigroup First Investment Management.

He joined from Société Générale, where his most recent role was that of head of cross structuring group, Apac ex-Japan, based in Hong Kong SAR since January 2021. Phillips-Franjou had been at SG since February 2007. He started as financial engineer, structured products in Hong Kong SAR before spending eight years at the French bank’s London office starting from April 2010. During his time in London, he was appointed as head of product development for Lyxor ETF before becoming director, head of global equity flow structuring, in June 2011 and subsequently coordinated cross asset structuring efforts with respect to delta one and exchange-traded products in Emea from 2015.

Hkex

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) has appointed Matthew Cheong (pictured) as managing director, head of structured products and platform business development at HKEX.

Cheong will work closely with the sales and marketing teams to support market outreach and engagement and collaborate with the operations and IT divisions on the development and implementation of the platforms for relevant HKEX products. He reports to Wilfred Yiu, who added to his portfolio of responsibilities the role of co-chief operating officer alongside Bonnie Y Chan at the end of January, in addition to his responsibilities over HKEX’s cash, derivatives, clearing and depository businesses as head of equities.

Cheong joined from Goldman Sachs where his most recent role was that of managing director, global markets, Asia Pacific equities, co-head warrants market making desk, and co-head equities technologies. He also worked at J.P. Morgan for six and a half years focusing on developing trading systems and technology as executive director.

Leonteq

Leonteq has appointed Alexandre van Gasselt (pictured) as head of markets. Van Gasselt reports directly to Leonteq’s chief executive officer (CEO) Lukas Ruflin. In his new role, Van Gasselt will oversee, among others, exotics trading, retail flow business, as well as delta-one, actively managed certificates (AMC), funds and quantitative investment strategies (QIS) trading activities. Previously, he was managing director, co-head trading at the Swiss structured product specialist.

Van Gasselt joined Leonteq in 2019 from Société Générale where he was a managing director. Prior to that he spent 14 years at Commerzbank in various roles, including co-head structured products technology, covering the financial engineering and front office infrastructure teams, and head of equity indices and cross assets structured products trading. He started his career at the German bank in 2005 in equity exotics trading.

Leonteq also announced a change to its executive committee, as Marco Amato, deputy CEO & chief financial officer (CFO) of Leonteq, will step down from his role by 31 August 2023 to pursue new opportunities. Amato joined Leonteq as CFO in September 2016, and additionally served as chief risk officer between November 2016 and October 2017. In October 2017, he was appointed CEO ad interim replacing Jan Schoch who left the company following a €20m net loss in January 2017. Since May 2018 Amato has served as deputy CEO and CFO.

Hsbc

Vivek Kumar (pictured) has been appointed as global head of FX and derivatives platforms & product management at HSBC based in Singapore. He has been charged with modernising and introducing new digital technologies and platforms to provide an automated user experience across foreign exchange (FX), structured products and derivatives solutions at scale.

In this newly created role, Kumar reports to Fidelis Oruche, managing director, global head of capital markets and investments and wealth solutions (IWS) platforms, global private banking and wealth at HSBC, also based in Singapore.

Kumar joined from SCB where he was executive director, head of products (FX, interest rate and commodity) within the capital market product and solutions (CMPS) unit from February 2018.

From May 2010 to January 2018, he was business manager specialising in FX and rates derivatives as well as credit under the financial markets division at SCB. Kumar started his career at Barclays where he worked as a business analyst in FX, rate and credit based in Singapore and Hong Kong SAR for three years.

Standard Chartered Bank

Olivier Pierlot (pictured) has been promoted to global head of structured products & fixed income product management within the capital market products & solutions (CMPS) division at Standard Chartered Bank (SCB). Pierlot continues to be based in Singapore and reports to Nicolas Rigois, managing director, global head of CMPS at SCB. His mandate has been expanded to fixed income and credit in addition to the management of the structured products business.

In his expanded role, Pierlot has been tasked to drive the product development globally for retail as well as private banking segments, and to broaden the structured product and fixed income franchise to the high-growth markets for SCB. He joined the UK bank in May 2015 focusing on equity derivatives in the private and priority banking segment across Asia, the Middle East and the UK.

Prior to that, he spent almost nine years at BNP Paribas Wealth Management as a discretionary portfolio manager in Hong Kong SAR and successively an equity derivatives structurer and advisor in Singapore.

Leonteq

Thorsten Heidt (pictured) has joined Leonteq as managing director at the Swiss provider’s Frankfurt office. Heidt rejoins the structured products industry after a 12-month career break following his departure from Société Générale in December 2021.

Heidt transferred to the French bank in 2019 as a managing director following the acquisition of Commerzbank’s equity markets & commodities (EMC) division. He was head of corporate & institutional sales Dach region EMC since 2016 after he relocated from Hong Kong where he was managing director and head of equity markets & commodities Asia. Heidt joined Commerzbank in 1997 as a junior equity derivatives trader and held several management positions in derivatives trading covering various asset classes, including commodities, foreign exchange, interest rates and single stock equity derivatives. He also served as a member of the supervisory board and representative for Commerzbank at Deutsche Börse Commodities between 2008 and 2011.

Société Générale

Société Générale (SG) has appointed Jung-Jin Yoon (pictured) as managing director, head of cross-asset sales & structuring for Asia Pacific (Apac). The appointment is part of the French bank’s decision to combine its structuring team together with its crossasset sales force. Yoon will continue to be based in Hong Kong SAR.

Yoon joined SG in Hong Kong SAR in 2007 before relocating to Seoul to lead the local cross-asset distribution activities in 2013 as the bank bolstered its Korean setup. He returned to Hong Kong SAR in 2017 as head of cross-asset distribution sales for Asia ex-Japan before his mandate was expanded to Apac in April 2020.

The reorganisation is to ‘ensure a strong alignment of the bank’s innovation capabilities to its clients’ needs for solutions’. Olivier Renoux and Tommy Paulhan have been appointed co-heads of structuring for products & solutions, global markets, Apac - an expansion from their existing roles.

Renoux and Paulhan, who are both based in Hong Kong SAR, will report locally to Yoon with a functional reporting line to Pierre Gimenes and Vincent Vigroux, managing directors, and global co-heads of structuring for products & solutions at SG in Paris.

Ranked as managing director and director, respectively, Renoux and Paulhan will replace Olivier Daguet, head of structuring for products & solutions, global markets, Apac at SG. Daguet will return to Europe although the timeline for the move and the new role have not been disclosed.

Renoux joined SG in New York in 2005 as an equity derivatives pricer. In 2010, he relocated to Hong Kong SAR, and was later promoted to his current position - Apac head of equity pricing and cross-asset quantitative investment strategies (QIS). Paulhan has acted as Apac head of fixed income & currencies (FIC) pricing since 2019 after his relocation from Singapore to Hong Kong SAR. He joined the French bank in 2006 where he started as a market risk analyst covering Lyxor’s hedge funds managed account platform in Paris.