In other People Moves, ISDA adds CCP and FCM execs to its board and names a general counsel while the SEC has a departure and President Obama helps fill out the SIPC board.
UnaVista Expands Again in North America
Neil Giavara, senior sales executive, Americas, LSEG, UnaVista
Neil Giavara, formerly the senior sales director at reconciliation and post-trade systems vendor Electra Information Systems, has joined the North American branch of UnaVista, a hosted software platform vendor for matching, reconciliation and regulatory reporting that is part of the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG).
Giavara was at Electra from December 2013 to February 2016, according to his LinkedIn page. He has been with his new employer since February, where his title is senior sales executive, Americas at LSEG, UnaVista.
Giavara joins the LSEG sales office in New York, which UnaVista established in 2013, officials say. UnaVista officially announced the hiring this week.
UnaVista offers many solutions, including the EMIR Trade Repository and MiFID Approved Reporting Mechanism (ARM), officials say.
ISDA Adds Execs to Board and Names a General Counsel
The International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. (ISDA) reports the appointment of two senior executives, one from a central counterparty (CCP) and one from a futures commission merchant (FCM), to its board of directors.
Kim Taylor, president, global operations, technology and risk, CME Group
The new directors are John Dabbs, global head of prime derivatives services at Credit Suisse, and Kim Taylor, president of global operations, technology and risk at CME Group.
Taylor will “sit on the board for one year, after which the position will be taken by representatives from other CCPs on a revolving, one-year basis,” an ISDA statement notes.
Additionally, ISDA says it has established a new central counterparty committee, meant to “complement ISDA’s existing work in cleared derivatives” and “provide a forum for ISDA’s CCP members to discuss the regulatory, legal, policy, risk and infrastructure issues facing CCPs and cleared derivatives.”
ISDA officials also report the appointment of Katherine Tew Darras as general counsel.
She will “lead ISDA’s efforts to develop the legal standards, documentation and opinions necessary to support global cleared and non-cleared derivatives businesses,” the association says in a statement. “This includes the initiative to develop documentation and protocols to facilitate compliance with new derivatives regulations including margin rules for non-cleared derivatives, the expansion of the ISDA Resolution Stay Jurisdictional Modular Protocol, and the ongoing publication of close-out netting, collateral and clearing opinions.”
Tew Darras joined ISDA in November 2001 as assistant general counsel, was named general counsel for the Americas in 2008, and has served as acting general counsel since January 2016, per the statement.
SEC Associate Director of Enforcement to Leave
The SEC reports that Stephen L. Cohen, associate director of the enforcement division, is planning to leave the agency where he has served for the past 12 years.
Cohen, who is expected to depart in June, was appointed associate director in 2011, overseeing a staff of nearly 60 attorneys and other professionals, the agency says in a statement, “responsible for investigating potential violations of the federal securities laws by a wide range of market participants.”
Before his current appointment, Cohen was, from 2009 to 2011, a senior advisor to former SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro. He joined the SEC as an assistant chief litigation counsel in the enforcement division in 2004, leaving the Boies, Schiller & Flexner law firm to take the agency post.
President Obama Moves to Fill Out SIPC Board
Bonnie A. Barsamian, SIPC board nominee and partner, Baker Botts
Bonnie A. Barsamian, a partner in the New York office of the Baker Botts L.L.P. law firm, has been nominated by President Barack Obama to serve on the board of the Securities Investor Protection Corp. (SIPC), “which maintains a special reserve fund authorized by Congress to help investors at failed brokerage firms,” according to an SIPC statement.
Barsamian has more than 25 years of corporate transactional, advisory and regulatory experience, the SIPC statement notes.
“She advises public and private companies, financial institutions, sponsors, executive leadership, and boards of directors in the full range of equity and debt capital markets/securities offerings and other financing transactions, as well as acquisition/divestiture, recapitalization, and change-of-control transactions,” according to the SIPC.
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