People moves: Rothera expands its leadership, NeoClear hires a former LCH EquityClear CIO and Patrick Pearson to chair EU tape committee

The week’s senior appointments in trading and market infrastructure. The roundup covers announcements from Monday 26 October to Friday 30 October 2026.

Clearing and market infrastructure

Rothera (US). Rothera, the CFTC-regulated event contract exchange and clearing house set up by Robinhood and Susquehanna, has announced seven executive hires and promotions. Saikat Bhattacharjee, most recently at OCC and previously at Citadel, is chief risk officer. Kevin Dan, who previously led the regulatory function at Crypto.com Derivatives North America and Nadex, is chief compliance and regulatory officer. Pat DeFrancesco, who has worked at Brevan Howard, Genesis Trading and ICE, is chief technology officer. Ryan Mendel, formerly CIO of LedgerX, is CIO and CISO. Eric Schmid, who spent more than 12 years at IEX, is vice president and head of operations. Hugo Nistal Gonzalez, previously at Cboe Digital, is vice president of product management. Jena Pollock, previously in private practice at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Jones Day, is associate general counsel. (Rothera, 27 October)

NeoClear (UK). NeoClear, the start-up European clearing house founded and led by chief executive Paul Whitehead, has named Loïc Salmona chief technology officer. He leads the technology architecture and delivery of its clearing platform. Salmona was previously CIO of EquityClear at LCH SA, where he led technology for regulated clearing across equities, commodities and digital assets. (NeoClear)

Transparent Markets Europe (Europe). Transparent Markets Europe (TME), which ESMA selected to run the EU consolidated tape for OTC derivatives, has named Patrick Pearson chair of its Consultative Committee. The committee will advise on the tape’s design, data standards, data quality and pricing. Pearson spent more than three decades at the European Commission, most recently as head of financial market infrastructure, where he led the team that implemented the post-crisis reforms of derivatives markets, clearing and settlement. The committee meets for the first time in December. TME is seeking authorisation from ESMA, and the tape is expected to go live in June 2027. (Etrading Software / TME, 29 October)

Exchanges, venues and boards

Nasdaq (US). Nasdaq has appointed Börje Ekholm, former president and CEO of Ericsson and a previous chair of the Nasdaq board, to its board of directors from 1 November 2026. He will sit on the Audit & Risk Committee. Holden Spaht, who joined the board in November 2023 after the Adenza acquisition, will step down on 31 December 2026. (Nasdaq, 26 October)

Marex (UK). Marex Group, the financial services group, has appointed Kory Sorenson to its group board from 2 November 2026. She was previously head of insurance capital markets at Barclays Capital, and has chaired audit, risk and remuneration committees on the boards of several international companies. (Marex via GlobeNewswire, 27 October)

Asset Match (UK). Asset Match, which runs periodic auctions in private company shares and operates a PISCES venue, has appointed Matt Greenwell as chief executive. He joined the board as a director earlier this month and brings experience in distributed ledger technology, as the firm looks at opportunities in digital securities and tokenisation. (Asset Match, 29 October)

Trading technology

Talos (US). Talos, which provides institutional trading and portfolio technology for digital assets, has hired Kelly Ye as head of research in New York. She will run research on market structure, liquidity and on-chain finance. She previously held research and product leadership roles at Fidelity Digital Asset Management and CoinDesk Indices. (Talos via PR Newswire, 28 October)

Moving jobs in trading or market structure? Send news of appointments to The Midpoint through our contact page.