Northern Trust has expanded its alternatives business development team across the UK, Ireland, Luxembourg and Channel Islands with the appointment of Edwin Parker. In this newly created role Parker (pictured) will focus on offering Northern Trust’s hedge fund administration services and its specialist private equity, infrastructure, and real estate fund administration services to fund managers across the region. “Fund managers are faced with a number of pressures – from generating returns for their investors to meeting new regulatory requirements, and reporting on risk management and demonstrating transparency,” says Madeleine Senior, head of sales for asset servicing at Northern Trust in

The Conifer Group, a provider of fund administration, middle office, trading and prime brokerage services to the hedge fund industry, has promoted Howard Eisen to head of business development. Eisen (pictured) joined Conifer as a managing director in January 2012 to add his hedge fund experience to Conifer’s business development team. Eisen will be reporting to Conifer president and chief executive Jack McDonald. In addition, Conifer also named Manish Garg as the firm’s chief information officer. Garg has been serving as acting head of technology. Garg will be reporting to Conifer chief operating officer Sal Campo. "Over the past 10 months,

Object Trading, an independent provider of global direct market access (DMA), has named Dan Hubscher director of marketing. In this newly created position, Hubscher will promote the Object Trading brand and provide market feedback to ensure the FrontRunner suite of products continues to meet the standards of buy- and sell-side firms around the world. Hubscher brings nearly 15 years of capital markets technology sector experience to his new role.   Most recently, Hubscher was industry marketing manager, capital markets, for Progress Software Corporation where he was responsible for overseeing marketing strategies for solutions in algorithmic trading, e-commerce, and market surveillance

As part of a major repositioning, currency asset and liability manager The ECU Group has appointed a number of senior executive and non executive directors, who have also become significant investors in the company. ECU plans to build upon the success of its 24-year flagship multi-currency liability management programme to include both passive and active currency overlay services.  In addition, ECU has plans to diversify into additional areas that complement the expertise of the management and investment team: global macro advisory, multi-manager selection and asset allocation services.   Antony John, previously chief executive of multi-asset manager BNP Paribas FundQuest, becomes

Chi-X Australia, a wholly owned subsidiary of alternative trading venue operator Chi-X Global, has announced that Peter Fowler will step down as chief executive in early 2013. He will, however, continue in his role as a director on the board of Chi-X Australia. Chi-X Global is currently undertaking a global search and evaluation process for a successor, who is expected to be in place before Fowler’s (pictured) departure. “On behalf of the board and everyone at Chi-X Global, I would like to thank Peter for his myriad contributions over the past five years, as his leadership, knowledge and tenacity have

Ben Eaton has joined Goodwin Procter as a partner in the firm’s London office. Eaton (pictured) comes to Goodwin from Allen & Overy in London. As a member of the firm’s tax practice, Eaton’s initial focus will be on tax matters involving investment funds and real estate transactions. He has considerable experience advising on the tax aspects of numerous types of funds, including private equity, infrastructure/renewables, debt, hedge and real estate. In addition to his multi-sector expertise in the fund formation area, he has advised clients on all aspects of real estate work, including investment, financing, development and leasing as

Direct Access Partners, a diversified institutional financial services firm, has appointed Michael Dolan to launch a new research initiative as part of its expansion across its multi-asset class execution offering. The Alternative Research Group (ARG) will focus on acquisitions, strategic partnerships, and exclusive relationships with highly differentiated and value-added research teams across various sectors and verticals. The goal is to provide institutional investors with actionable information and content from independent sources that add incremental value. “With the Alternative Research Group we take another step in our strategy of actively pursuing relevant and complementary opportunities across brokerage and asset management business

The London Metal Exchange (LME) has appointed Adrian Farnham as the chief operating officer for LME Clear. Farnham (pictured) joined Turquoise Global in 2007 as chief operating officer and became chief executive officer in 2010. He was instrumental in the market launch of Turquoise, working with Cinnober Technology on the initial implementation of the platform.  In 2011 he led the platform expansion into derivatives.  Prior to Turquoise, Farnham worked as an executive director of operations at Morgan Stanley for 13 years. "Adrian is a fantastic addition to the executive team at LME Clear," says Trevor Spanner, managing director of post-trade

Andrew Beckman has joined Magnetar Capital to lead a new event credit team, working within Magnetar’s global event driven strategies business. Beckman, who will be based in New York, will report directly to Alec Litowitz, Magnetar chief executive, founder and head of global event driven strategies.   “The addition of this new credit team to Magnetar’s event driven business rounds out our ability to deploy capital across all stages of the corporate lifecycle,” says Litowitz. “Andrew Beckman’s proven track record in this space and his ability to collaborate with teams across platforms make him an ideal leader for our event credit