Luminex Trading & Analytics, a buy side-owned trading venue delivering low-cost block executions, has hired Ilisa Gruber as sales and relationship manager. Based in Chicago, Gruber will oversee Luminex’s relationships with top clients among its more than 200 buy-side, institutional investors. She will be responsible for increasing engagement with existing clients as well as managing the firm’s continued growth in the US Midwest and other regions. Previously, Gruber spent 18 years at Liquidnet, where she was initially hired as the firm’s first sales trader and helped grow the business into a global institutional investment network. Earlier in her career, she worked at firms including Thomas Weisel Partners, Schroders & Company and CS First Boston.

Block trading continues to be a key element of the volatility and volume of the COVID era. In June 2020, the latest month for which FINRA data is available, Luminex saw an average natural block trade size of 46,000 shares, placing it among the leaders in FINRA’s 10k block trading category.

Equity capital marketplace Appital has appointed Greg Bennett and Stephane Carty as non-executive directors, following the recent appointment of Brian Guckian and Philipp Eberle to the firm’s management team. Bennett, previously Head of Capital Markets for EMEA and the Americas for Fidelity International, also brings sell side expertise as former Partner and Managing Director in Equity Capital Markets and Equity Syndicate for Cazenove and JPMorgan Cazenove. Carty founded Fir Post Capital, a global volatility fund, in 2010 and subsequently Blackheath Capital Management. Previously, he was head of European Principal Strategies at Wachovia Securities International.

Telecoms operator and infrastructure provider BSO has appointed Anna Flach as Global Marketing Director. As a member of the management team, she will be responsible for defining and executing BSO’s marketing and communications strategy, based in London and reporting to Chief Commercial Officer Fraser Bell. Flach joins BSO from the world of FinTech, where she was most recently working towards mainstream adoption of blockchain technology. Prior to that, Anna held roles at Commerzbank, BNP Paribas and Allianz in Munich, Paris and London.

Torstone Technology, a provider of post-trade securities and derivatives processing, today announced the appointment of David Pearson, who will be joining Torstone’s product team, based at the firm’s London headquarters.  He joins Torstone from Genesis Global, where he was responsible for post-trade workflow solutions. Prior to that, Pearson spent twenty-five years at Fidessa, initially working with sell-side brokers and dealers to build and implement front and middle-office workflow solutions for equities, and more recently, with buy-side firms on asset classes including exchange-traded derivatives and repo. He is a former Co-chair of the FIX Trading Community’s Global Post Trade Working Group.

Tourmaline Partners, a global outsourced trading solutions firms, has received a majority investment from Copley Equity Partners, a private investment firm that focuses on established businesses with significant growth prospects. Terms of the deal are not being disclosed, but Tourmaline is projected to trade $300 billion notionally in equities in 2020, in a notable validation of the outsourced/supplemental trading model. Following the deal, the firm hired Alex Goodman (formerly at Macquarie) and Matt Sindell (formerly at Susquehanna International Group) as Managing Directors, and Darren Mazzuca (formerly at Gabelli Asset Management) as Director of Operations.

Point Nine, a post-trade processing and regulatory reporting service provider, is expanding its global presence by forming a team in Luxembourg. The team will be headed by Paul Goes as its Business Development Manager, based in Luxembourg since April 2020. Andreas Roussos, Point Nine Director, says, “We’re excited Paul Goes has joined our team and are confident his extensive experience in the Luxembourg Financial Services marketplace will contribute to Point Nine’s expansion as well as providing the market with an excellent cloud-based reporting suite of products.”

Capital markets software firm genesis has appointed Nick Kolba as Global Head of Platform. Co-Founder and Chair of the FDC3 program at the Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS), Kolba has 20 years of experience including as Chief Technology and Product Officer at OpenFin and, prior to that, as a Technology Director at Thomson Reuters, where he led the development of the Eikon App Studio. In his new role he will be responsible for delivering the firm’s technology strategy and help to drive client adoption of its Low Code Application Platform. The move should boost the firm’s expansion strategy, following the closing of its second round of fundraising back in December 2019.

Finantix, technology provider to the wealth management, insurance and banking industries, has appointed Albert Iselin to the role of Executive Director for EMEA, further widening his remit and responsibilities. His team includes new hire Aurelia Philippoz who joins the Swiss team as Inside Sales and Marketing Executive. Based in Switzerland, Iselin will continue to report to Finantix Chief Commercial Officer, Christine Ciriani. He will focus on further expanding Finantix’s presence across the EMEA region. The announcement follows on from the firm’s recent acquisition of Zurich-based AI specialist InCube, and is part of Finantix’s long-term strategy to expand its European team.

Shareholders at SIX’s AGM yesterday elected André Helfenstein to the Board of Directors. He becomes the representative of Credit Suisse with immediate effect, replacing Thomas Gottstein. The 53-year-old Swiss and British citizen is CEO of Credit Suisse (Switzerland) and a member of the Executive Board of Credit Suisse Group, responsible for the bank’s entire Swiss business. He has been with the bank for over 12 years, holding various management positions in different areas of the private clients business as well as in the corporate and institutional clients business. Before joining Credit Suisse he spent over 10 years with Boston Consulting Group. He is also a member of the Boards of Directors of Neue Aargauer Bank and Venture Incubator.

BTON Financial, an automated outsourced trading desk for asset managers, has appointed txo new strategic hires to meet the growing demand for its services. Charles Phan, an experienced hedge fund CTO, quant strategist and trader joins as Chief Technology Officer to drive the firm’s technology strategy and delivery; while Caroline Holmes, a regulatory expert and change management specialist with extensive asset management experience, joins as Head of Business Development to act as a conduit between clients, technology and sales teams to support swift onboarding for asset managers.