People: CRO switches at Wells and Barclays, further SG shake-ups, and more

At Wells Fargo, a new chief risk officer is set to take the reins, as Derek Flowers retires from the role in mid-January 2027, after almost three decades at the firm. Succeeding Flowers is New York-based Scott Powell, who has worked closely with Flowers to advance the bank’s risk and control priorities, as it seeks to expand its investment banking presence.

Flowers most recently served as head of the bank’s strategic execution and operations office and was previously responsible for oversight of its credit, counterparty, and market risk as chief credit and market risk officer.

Like Flowers, Powell is a member of the bank’s operating committee, having served as its chief operating officer (COO) since late 2019, in which role his successor is yet to be named. Powell was previously CEO of both Santander Holdings USA and Santander Consumer USA Holdings. He has also held a number of roles at JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup.

Barclays has also swapped out CROs, following the retirement of Matthew Stevens after 34 years with the bank, effective September 11. Phil Beale has succeeded him, a bank spokesman confirmed.

Beale returns to Barclays, where he spent 12 years until 2022, latterly as CRO for its business bank, mortgages and ventures, per his LinkedIn profile. In the interim, he served as deputy group CRO at Aldermore Bank.

At Societe Generale, the global markets leadership shake-up continues under now-sole global head Hatem Mustapha. Salim Nemouchi has been appointed head of global markets, UK, effective November. He succeeds Albert Loo, who will move to Paris to continue his role as global head of financial institutions coverage within global banking and advisory, and head of investor coverage. Nemouchi, who will relocate to London, retains his position as global head of prime services alongside his new role, confirms a spokesperson.

Natasha Dadlani and Stephane Dahome have been named co-heads of equities and equity derivatives Americas, succeeding Nemouchi in the roles, also from November. They will report to Sylvain Cartier, head of global markets Americas and will be based in New York. Both have held numerous roles at the firm. Dahome, who joined in 2011, was most recently head of linear trading within equity derivatives Americas; Dadlani, who joined in 2017, has held several senior positions, most recently as head of equity derivatives and quantitative investment strategy sales

SG has also appointed Tomoyuki Sasi as head of global markets, Japan, effective September 1. He succeeds Marc Saffon, who assumed the role of group country head for Japan from the same date. He will report functionally to Mohamed Braham, head of global markets, Asia-Pacific, and deputy global head of fixed income and currencies, and locally to Koji Shimamoto, president of SG Securities Japan. Sasi previously held senior roles in global markets at Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan, Deutsche Securities and Credit Suisse.

The bank has also named Benoit Grisoni as deputy head of French retail banking, private banking and insurance, effective October 1. Grisoni will report to Lubomira Rochet, executive vice-president in charge of retail banking activities in France, private banking and insurance, as well as to the group’s COO. Grisoni will continue to serve as CEO of its BoursoBank online subsidiary alongside his new role.

Blythe Masters is to leave her role as group CEO of New Zealand-based wealth management platform FNZ. Masters, a high-profile industry figure, was a pioneer of the credit transfer market during her 27-year career at JP Morgan. She held a range of senior roles at the bank, including head of global commodities and head of corporate and investment bank regulatory affairs. Before taking up the FNZ role, Masters was a founding partner of fintech specialised private equity group Motive Partners – a strategic investor in FNZ – and was CEO of Digital Asset Holdings. As the FNZ board seeks to identify a permanent group CEO, Stephen Welch will assume the role’s responsibilities alongside his new position as executive group chair

Citi has appointed Andrei Kazantsev as global head of FX exotics trading, based in London. The bank confirms Kazantsev joined in September and will report to Patrick Green, global head of FX options trading. Kazantsev joins from a 15-year stint at Goldman Sachs, most recently as global head of FX flow exotics and structured products, according to his LinkedIn profile. Goldman did not respond to a request to comment on the move.

Ian Jackson has joined Two Sigma, where he will serve as CRO, a spokesperson confirms. The appointment follows a transition period alongside current CRO Satish Ramakrishna, who retires this year after eight years at Two Sigma and a 30-year career in the industry. Jackson was previously head of securities finance principal trading at BNY.

Michael Grimwade has announced his departure from ICBC Standard Bank, where he was a managing director in operational risk for eight years, according to a LinkedIn post. He was previously head of operational risk at Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group’s international securities business, a director of the Institute of Operational Risk and the author of Managing Operational Risk, a Risk.net publication. ICBC did not respond to a request for comment on Grimwade’s successor.

Paolo Esposito has been appointed as director, financial markets corporate sales at ING. He will report to head of FM corporate sales UK, Thiago Moraes, and joins from Deloitte UK, where he set up and led the firm’s derivatives advisory and execution business.

Robbert Booij will step down as chief executive of Eurex at the end of this year. after deciding not to seek an extension of his executive board mandate.

His departure comes just over two years after taking the reins of the Frankfurt-based derivatives exchange. In May 2024 he replaced Michael Peters, who retired after 30 years with the exchange group.

Booij will be succeeded by Eric Leupold, who currently heads the cash market at Eurex parent, Deutsche Boerse. Leupold joined the German exchange group in 2009 and has held leadership roles in areas including DB1 Ventures and trading and clearing strategy.

Booij joined Eurex after 17 years at ABN Amro Clearing Bank, where he was chief executive for Europe from 2018. He served as chair of FIA Europe and was a member of the association’s global board between 2020 and 2024.

The Options Clearing Corporation has appointed Jake Middleton as its chief security officer, effective September 8. Middleton joins from Federal Reserve Financial Services, where he served as vice-president and head of product and platform security. He previously held roles at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

ProShares has made a series of hires as part of a plan to expand its exchange-traded fund (ETF) lineup beyond traditional assets into new areas such as active management, private markets and fixed income. Alessio de Longis has been appointed chief investment officer and head of research. He will head the new active investments platform, which will host the firm’s new range of interval funds. De Longis was recently head of asset allocation and senior portfolio manager at Invesco’s Investment Solutions Group.

Hyuk Soo Han becomes senior portfolio manager for private equity. He joins from GCM Grosvenor, where he led the firm’s private equity team. Inkoo Kang joins as executive director for tactical products in an effort to support growth of the firm’s leveraged and inverse-ETF business. He joins from Grayscale and spent over a decade at Direxion.

Joseph Witkoswki becomes head of product development, joining from BlackRock, where he held senior product roles in ETFs, alternatives and mutual funds. Nicholas Georgakis also joins from BlackRock to head product implementation.

The firm, which has $120 billion of assets under management expects to make at least 20 additional hires to support the expansion.

Thomas Gstädtner has been confirmed as the new executive director of the European Banking Authority. Gstädtner spent 12 years at the European Central Bank, including as head of division for the directorate for systemic and international banks. He has been president of the supervisory board of the European Banking Institute for more than 10 years and previously held roles at Deutsche Bank.

He replaces Francois-Lois Michaud, who had held the role since September 2020 and was named EBA chair in March this year.

Gstädtner will serve a five-year renewable term and take up duties in the coming weeks.

Marex has appointed Robert Cheeseman as head of prime services Asia. Cheeseman spent just under four years at Credit Suisse as head of Asia-Pacific prime derivatives services, then joined Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing as managing director – co-head of client development.

The Alternative Investment Management Association has announced changes to its board of directors for the 2026-2028 term, effective September 9. Joining the council are Stephen Berger of Citadel, Ronan Guilfoyle of Calderwood and Liam O’Sullivan of RPIA Capital Management. Leaving the council are Citadel’s Donna Rix , Russel Burt of Marbury Fund Services and Angus Milne of TCI Fund Management.