Macro Risk Solutions (MRS), an investment advisor providing risk and hedging products and solutions to institutional investors, has hired Mayank Seksaria as a Principal and Director in the firm’s San Francisco office.   With the addition of Seksaria, MRS has expanded its macro research capabilities and enhanced its ability to provide institutional investors with best in class risk and hedging products along with investment solutions that lead to superior portfolio performance.     “Mayank brings significant macro focused research and portfolio management experience," says Ryan Dow, Principal at MRS. "Integrating Mayank's proven top down research process into our diversified and thematic

JonesTrading Institutional Services, an institutional equity block trading and execution firm based in the United States has named Gavin Spencer as CEO of its United Kingdom affiliate, JonesTrading International Ltd. In addition, Gary Cunningham has been appointed as Head of Business Development.   Spencer reports to Alan Hill (pictured), JonesTrading Institutional Services LLC’s CEO.   The firm will provide UK, Continental, and cross-border US-European equity trading, servicing institutional and hedge fund firms. It is anticipated that with the implementation of MiFID II and research unbundling, there will be increased demand for conflict free, high touch execution services in blocks, which

Timothy Roniger has resigned as Chief Financial Officer of Gottex with effect from 10 November, 2015. According to a brief statement released by the company: “The Board of Directors of Gottex thanks Mr Roniger for his years of loyal service to the company.  A search for his successor is under way.”  

Options, a managed service and IT infrastructure provider to the global capital markets industry, has appointed former NYSE Technologies sales executive, Helen Viccars (pictured), to the firm’s global sales team.  Viccars, who was responsible for EMEA sales and account management at NYSE Technologies, joins Options as VP Sales and Account Management. As the latest addition to Options’ European sales and account management team, Viccars will be responsible for driving new business growth, evolving relationships with key strategic clients and ensuring customer success across new and existing clients. Her arrival follows the announcement last month that Options has opened a new

Ruta Ziverte has joined Oppenheimer Funds as a senior portfolio manager in the newly formed Multi-Sector Fixed Income team, reporting to Michael Mata (pictured), head of the new Multi-Sector Fixed Income team, which looks across global debt markets for attractive opportunities. Mata also continues as lead portfolio manager for Oppenheimer Global Strategic Income Fund and a portfolio manager of Oppenheimer Global High Yield Fund. Ziverte joins the firm from GE Asset Management, where she was a high yield portfolio manager.   Mata, Ziverte and research analyst Anuranjan Sharma comprise the new team, which oversees multi-sector fixed income investment strategies for

Weeden Prime Services, a prime brokerage services provider for hedge funds, has expanded its sales and client services teams. Joining the Weeden sales team are industry veterans Robert Jordan and Andrew Brown. Jordan had been a partner of Wells Fargo’s Prime Brokerage division since 2008. He was instrumental in establishing and expanding Wells Fargo’s presence in the Boston, Massachusetts area and will play a similar role at Weeden.   “It’s an exciting time to join Weeden Prime,” says Jordan “The emerging and middle market hedge fund manager needs a reliable and dedicated prime services partner that will provide the platform

Citi has made a number of strategic hires to its Investor Services franchise in Europe, the Middle-East and Africa (EMEA). Simon Kempton will join as EMEA Head of Prime Finance and will be responsible for driving the growth of Citi’s Prime Finance platform throughout the region. He will report to Chris Cox, EMEA Head of Investor Services and Adam Herrmann, who joined Citi from UBS earlier this year as Global Head of Prime Finance.   Daniel Caplan will join as EMEA Head of Investor Services Sales. In this role, he will be responsible for building and leading Citi’s regional sales

Confluence, a specialist in investment data management automation for regulatory, financial and investor reporting, has added to its London team with the appointment of Katie Kiss as Director of Performance Analytics. Kiss has more than 12 years’ experience in the performance measurement field. She previously served as Global Solution Manager for Performance at SS&C Technologies. Prior to that, she spent 10 years at UBS Global Asset Management where she served as UK Head of Performance for six years. She was responsible for performance reporting and analysis.    At Confluence, Kiss will be charged with the implementation of a global go-to-market

Financial advisory firm Carolon Capital has named Joanne Verkuilen (pictured) as Global Head of Client Services. In addition to fund management and fundraising services, Carolon offers investor relations and marketing support to financial services firms in the US and Europe. While Verkuilen will be involved in all facets of Carolon’s business, her primary responsibility will be to direct the investor relations and marketing services for Carolon’s clients.   “This is an important milestone for Carolon,” says Tim Smith, President and Managing Director of Carolon. “By adding Joanne to the team, we gain an accomplished leader in the field of marketing

Calypso Technology has appointed Pedro Porfirio as Senior Vice President, Chief Product Officer. In this role, Porfirio will be responsible for overall product strategy, driving product development and innovation across Calypso's solutions. Prior to joining Calypso, Porfirio spent 15 years in leadership roles in Europe and the Americas in FX and rates trading in both cash and derivatives. He was previously at State Street, Dresdner Kleinwort and Lehman Brothers. Most recently, Porfirio was Managing Director, Head of Interest Rates Derivatives Trading at Jefferies International Ltd in London where he was instrumental in setting up the interest rate derivatives operations front