About a-team Marketing Services
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry

A-Team Insight Blogs

Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad

Subscribe to our newsletter

When we first heard the latest theory on the succession plan for the former Reuters – that is to say, the market data vendor now known as Thomson Reuters Markets – we thought it was just so much tittle-tattle. It was back in October or November, and the integration of Reuters with Thomson Financial had barely been completed at best (and in fact is probably still ongoing). Surely the time wasn’t yet right for a change at the top, given how recently the key positions had been set post-merger in 2007.

Now we’re not so sure.

In a nutshell, here’s how the story went:

Eric Frank, who stepped in so ably to head Thomson Reuters Markets’ Research & Advisory buy-side business unit following the departure of Suresh Kavan almost immediately post-merger, we heard, was to be relocated from New York to Asia in a strategic move aimed at ‘spreading the wealth’ of senior management around the globe.

Devin Wenig, CEO of Thomson Reuters Markets, would be given a senior role at corporate Thomson Reuters, following mentor and Thomson Reuters’ overall CEO Tom Glocer into senior management of the umbrella holding group. Wenig’s move would pave the way for the elevation of Thomson Reuters Markets’ Enterprise group president Jon Robson to take over as CEO of Thomson Reuters Markets.

Crazy, right? And what about Mark Redwood, the former CEO of AVT who had headed Thomson Reuters Markets’ largest operating unit, Sales & Trading? Nowhere did Redwood feature in this scenario, which given the strategic importance of Sales & Trading, made no sense at all.

Hmm.

It now transpires that Eric Frank has been transferred to Hong Kong, where he will continue to run Research & Advisory. Redwood’s absence from our succession theorem may be explained, meanwhile, by the fact that he will step down and leave the company this coming summer.

Not so crazy after all.

Joining the dots, wouldn’t it make a whole lot more sense to meld the Sales & Trading and Enterprise groups, which currently fall over each other to sell product into primarily sell-side institutions. By merging S&T’s primarily terminal-based business with Enterprise’s data feeds and platforms business, Thomson Reuters Markets would be better positioned, surely, to stave off the threat of Bloomberg should it start to get its open platforms act together?

Maybe we shouldn’t have been quite so quick to dismiss this theory. Maybe what we’re hearing about is just a bit of jockeying for position as Redwood makes ready to depart. We don’t know.

But as the Meatloaf song goes: Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Related content

WEBINAR

Upcoming Webinar: Enhancing trader efficiency with interoperability – Innovative solutions for automated and streamlined trader desktop and workflows

17 September 2025 10:00am ET | 3:00pm London | 4:00pm CET Duration: 50 Minutes Traders today are expected to navigate increasingly complex markets using workflows that often lag behind the pace of change. Disconnected systems, manual processes, and fragmented user experiences create hidden inefficiencies that directly impact performance and risk management. Firms that can streamline...

BLOG

What to Expect at A-Team Group’s AI in Capital Markets Summit – New York, June 26, 2025

On June 26th, the A-Team Group brings its AI in Capital Markets Summit to New York City for the first time. The event will be held at @Ease on Third Avenue for a packed day of strategy, insight, and implementation. As artificial intelligence matures from early-stage experimentation to enterprise-wide deployment, capital markets firms face a...

EVENT

TradingTech Briefing New York

Our TradingTech Briefing in New York is aimed at senior-level decision makers in trading technology, electronic execution, trading architecture and offers a day packed with insight from practitioners and from innovative suppliers happy to share their experiences in dealing with the enterprise challenges facing our marketplace.

GUIDE

AI in Capital Markets: Practical Insight for a Transforming Industry – Free Handbook

AI is no longer on the horizon – it’s embedded in the infrastructure of modern capital markets. But separating real impact from inflated promises requires a grounded, practical understanding. The AI in Capital Markets Handbook 2025 provides exactly that. Designed for data-driven professionals across the trade life-cycle, compliance, infrastructure, and strategy, this handbook goes beyond...