Mark-It poaches Lombard's Davenport for Project Red

UK credit pricing provider Mark-It Partners has poached Penny Davenport from rival London-based valuations service provider Lombard Risk Systems. Davenport will be responsible for integration and management of the company's Project Red credit derivatives reference entity database.

Project Red, initially set up by Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, was divested to Mark-It Partners earlier this year. Mark-It is developing the database into an open, ‘for-profit’ public utility for credit reference information aimed at bringing reference data integrity and confidence to the credit derivatives market.

Davenport will be responsible for all aspects of Project Red’s development, as well as driving industry adoption of Project Red as a standard for trade matching and settlement.

Davenport joins Mark-it Partners from Lombard Risk Systems, where for the past two years she was managing director of the valuation services division, providing data services for the credit derivatives market.

Since agreeing the mandate for Project Red, Mark-It has been re-scrubbing the existing data in the database, according to Kevin Gould, chief operational officer at Mark-It. He told RiskNews it has also been working with the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and Swapswire to ensure the company uses a numbering system that can be used in their trade-matching platforms. “The launch [of Project Red] is imminent,” said Gould.

Mark-It has been rapidly expanding its team this year, hiring an additional seven staff since mid-March, bringing the total headcount to 23. Sandeep Dhingra was recruited from UBS earlier this month to the position of data analyst. Gould said he is currently recruiting more staff to support the expansion of new projects, including Red.