The award was decided by an industry vote by almost 350 attendees and later announced on stage.

Now in its second year running, the Industry Person of the Year Award is designed to celebrate those individuals who have made a significant impact on their own organisation and, equally, the industry externally, with a commitment to bettering and future proofing the markets for years to come.

After a landslide victory, Beasley took to the stage to receive her crystal. In her acceptance speech, she highlighted several causes important to her including the need for greater diversity in the industry, in particular gender diversity when it comes to senior roles.

Beasley joined Goldman Sachs to manage its new-look market structure team in 2019. She assumed the role at the bank after a 15-year stint with Morgan Stanley where she held several roles, most recently head of market structure for clients.

In her current role for Goldman Sachs, she is responsible for ensuring the operational efficiency of the business, managing relationships with exchanges and ensuring the business and its clients are well-positioned for developments within the European market structure. She began her career as an analyst at the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) in 2002.

Beasley is a committed expert and thought leader in market structure – an essential tool for any institution amid the many regulatory shifts taking place in the market as of late – and alongside her role at Goldman Sachs she is also chair of the AFME Securities Trading Committee, as well as sitting on the board of Cboe Europe and participating in several exchange and industry advisory groups.

Other nominees for the award included: Seema Arora, managing director, head of execution sales, Instinet Europe, Chris Jackson, global head of equities strategy and head of equities, EMEA, Liquidnet, Stéphane Marie-Françoise, director, multi-asset trader, Unigestion and Matt Mcloughlin, chief commercial officer and partner, Liontrust Asset Management.

The TRADE would like to extend its congratulations once again to Beasley for her award!

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Collecting his award, long term friend of The TRADE and buy-side stalwart Hock highlighted the importance of relationships, people and collaboration in this industry.

Hock – whose career in trading spans three decades – is a well-known advocate for institutional adoption of digital assets and distributed ledger technology (DLT) and in his acceptance speech he highlighted the importance of both in the future trading landscape.

In August, news broke that he is set to step away from his role as head of multi-asset trading later this year to pursue an opportunity in digital assets and tokenisation within Union Investment.

Read more – Union Investment’s trading head Hock steps away from role to pursue digital asset aspirations

Hock has been with Union Investment since 2014 and has been instrumental in the development of the firm’s trading strategy and structure. In 2015, the European asset manager unified its trading teams under one multi-asset trading desk as part of a strategic review, aimed at executing a greater percentage of orders sent by portfolio managers.

Union underwent another makeover in 2021, taking on a new hybrid organisational structure that divided this central trading desk into three teams, with his traders filtered by execution type.

The TRADE would like to extend its congratulations to Hock for his long-standing commitment and service to the industry.

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Almost 350 industry leaders joined The TRADE in a sold-out room to recognise the year’s leading individuals and firms within the industry, with 40 awards handed out across Buy-Side, Editors’ Choice, Algorithmic Trading, EMS, Outsourced Trading and Fintech categories.

Input for the coveted Buy-Side awards, awarded in partnership with SIX Swiss Exchange, was opened to the industry after a lengthy period of industry consultation prior. This year, the highly anticipated award for Trader of the Year went to Charlotte Nutting of Millennium.

BlackRock and Millennium took home the award for Trading Desk of the Year Long-Only and Trading Desk of the Year Hedge Fund, respectively. Meanwhile, T. Rowe Price and State Street Global Advisors received the awards for Multi-Asset Trading Desk of the Year and Fixed Income Trading Desk of the Year, respectively.

In another individual award recognition, Richard Worrell of Janus Henderson – soon to be LSEG – was honoured with the Buy-Side Market Structure Expert of the Year award.

This year’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement award for the buy-side was handed to Union Investment’s Christoph Hock, in recognition of his contributions to the industry, with more than three decades spent in trading and execution roles.

The Editors’ Choice categories are always highly competitive, and this year proved no exception. Across the 13 awards, this year’s winners – as judged by The TRADE’s editorial panel – were all worthy given their achievements over the last year.

In the trading venues arena, Liquidnet, Tradeweb and CME Group FX each took home Outstanding Trading Venue awards, while SIX Swiss Exchange was crowned overall Outstanding Exchange Group. BMLL Technologies claimed the award for Outstanding Market Data Provider, and elsewhere, BlackRock’s Aladdin collected the Outstanding Trading Technology Provider award.

This year, Saphyre was named FinTech of the Year 2023, in the category supported by Instinet.

Within the Algorithmic Trading and EMS categories – which are based on the results of The TRADE’s annual surveys – several firms took home multiple awards. BNP Paribas Exane won two honours from the Algorithmic Trading category: Best Trading Performance and Best Price Improvement Capabilities. BMO Capital Markets also received two awards in the algorithmic trading category, Best Access to Market, alongside Best Customer Support & Consulting. Meanwhile in the EMS category, Virtu Triton received two awards; Best Market Access and Best Large-Cap. Another double winner in the EMS category was TS Imagine, which took home awards for Best Platform Consistency and Best Multi-Asset Capabilities.

Prior to the Leaders in Trading awards dinner, The TRADE also recognised this year’s Rising Stars of Trading and Execution, 20 of the buy-side’s up and coming talents of the future. The ceremony for the Rising Stars marked the ninth annual event, with many of the previous year’s winners now earning nods within the Leaders in Trading categories.

Congratulations to all of this year’s winners:

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Running for its ninth year, the Rising Stars initiative, in partnership with Instinet, has recognised a number of up-and-coming talents over the years, many of whom have gone on to hold impressive roles and head up some of the largest and most successful desks across the world’s leading asset managers and hedge funds.

Find previous years’ recognised shortlists here: 2022 – 2021 – 2020 – 2019 – 2018 – 2017 – 2016 – 2015.

Congratulations to all the winners below. 

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As you read this, your crystals are being laid out, the silverware is being polished, and The TRADE team are brushing up on their speeches.

The TRADE is delighted to welcome our guests and shortlisted nominees for the long-awaited Leaders in Trading awards night 2023.

Growing still, this year is our biggest one yet, with almost 350 attendees. Tonight’s awards span 40 categories across the buy-side, sell-side, service providers, technology firms and venues, not to mention our highly coveted Rising Stars of Trading and Execution.

To all of our nominees and guests joining us later, we can’t wait to celebrate the year you’ve had. For all those of you that can’t attend, keep an eye out for the photos and a summary of the winners in tomorrow’s newsletter!

With thanks to our sponsors: Instinet, SIX Swiss Exchange, big xyt and Saphyre, we look forward to welcoming you. 

See you soon!

Tonight’s agenda:

17:00 Rising Stars of Trading and Execution registration and networking drinks (Abraham Lincoln Room)

17:45 Rising Stars of Trading and Execution awards presentation (Abraham Lincoln Room)

19:00 Leaders in Trading welcome drinks reception (River Room)

20:00 Leaders in Trading gala awards dinner (Lancaster Ballroom)

22:00 After-dinner cocktail reception and entertainment (River Room)

01:00 Carriages

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Now in its second year, this award is designed to celebrate those individuals who have made a significant impact on their own organisation and, equally, the industry externally, with a commitment to bettering and future proofing the markets for years to come.

Shortlisted individuals are repeated contributors to discussion whether that be through panels, associations or schemes to support the next generation joining the financial services industry.

The winner will be decided by a live industry vote at The TRADE’s Leaders in Trading gala awards night on 8 November. Congratulations to this year’s shortlisted nominees!

Industry Person of the Year 2023 shortlist:

Seema Arora, managing director, head of execution sales, Instinet Europe  

Champion of The TRADE’s Rising Stars of Trading and Execution award scheme, Instinet Europe’s Seema Arora needs little introduction with an extensive financial career spanning more than 25 years.

Beginning her career at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson as director and head of portfolio sales trading in 1997, she later went on to spend six years at JP Morgan, initially as an executive director and head of execution sales responsible for electronic and portfolio trading and ETFs. She later took on a role at the bank as executive director of investor flow sales responsible for the introduction of its derivative product to its UK client base.

Prior to joining Instinet Europe, Arora spent several years at Kepler Cheuvreux also in senior execution sales, program and portfolio trading focused roles. She joined Instinet Europe in 2019 as managing director and head of execution sales, her current role where she is responsible for the growth of new and existing client revenue. 

Alongside her role within the markets, Arora is vocal in her support of the next generation of individuals entering the financial services industry through participation in intern programs and the Rising Stars initiative, in partnership with The TRADE. 

Eleanor Beasley, chief operating officer for EMEA equity execution services, Goldman Sachs 

Chief operating officer of EMEA equity execution services, Eleanor Beasley, joined Goldman Sachs to manage its new-look market structure team in 2019. She assumed the role at the bank after a 15-year stint with Morgan Stanley where she held several roles, most recently head of market structure for clients.

In her current role for Goldman Sachs, she is responsible for ensuring the operational efficiency of the business, managing relationships with exchanges and ensuring the business and its clients are well-positioned for developments within the European market structure. She began her career as an analyst at the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) in 2002.

Beasley is a committed expert and thought leader in market structure – an essential tool for any institution amid the many regulatory shifts taking place in the market as of late – and alongside her role at Goldman Sachs she is also chair of the AFME Securities Trading Committee, as well as sitting on the board of Cboe Europe and participating in several exchange and industry advisory groups.

Chris Jackson, global head of equities strategy and head of equities, EMEA, Liquidnet

Global head of equities strategy and head of EMEA equities for Liquidnet, Chris Jackson has an extensive equity trading career spanning over 25 years. He began his career in program trading sales at London-based investment bank SG Warburg.

Jackson later spent 12 years at Merrill Lynch where he held a number of roles in both London and New York, most recently as head of sales across programme, transitions and electronic trading for the EMEA region. Jackson left Merrill Lynch in 2009 to join Citi as its head of execution sales for EMEA before joining Liquidnet in 2015. He served in a variety of senior equities roles until his most recent one as global head of equity strategy and head of equities for EMEA. He is also responsible for Liquidnet’s equity product strategy. Jackson played a pivotal role during the acquisition of Liquidnet by TP ICAP Group, ensuring a smooth transition during the integration process.

Alongside his various equities roles within the market, Jackson has previously been co-chair of the FIX committee for EMEA, an advisor to the UK Government office for science on the future of computer trading in financial markets and a founding member of the OpenTCA initiative to promote transparency and standards in transaction cost analysis (TCA). In April, he took part in a charity bike ride home from the TradeTech Europe 2023 conference in Paris in aid of Farms for City Children.

Stéphane Marie-Françoise, director, multi-asset trader, Unigestion

Senior vice president and multi-asset trader at Unigestion, Stéphane Marie-Françoise, has an extensive financial markets career spanning more than 20 years. Beginning his career at Dexia Securities as a financial analyst assistant in 2002 he has since gone on to serve at CPR Asset Management, Amundi and Unigestion.

After joining CPR Asset Management in 2002 in a middle-office role, Marie-Françoise rose through the ranks, joining the dealing desk in 2005 in an equities program trading and derivatives position. He later took responsibility for the dealing desk in 2007, managing a team of three traders. Marie-Françoise moved to Amundi as a senior execution trader in 2012 before eventually joining Unigestion in 2013 in a multi-asset capability as a vice president and multi-asset trader. He was promoted to senior vice president in 2018, later taking on his current role as director and multi asset trader.

Marie-Françoise was recognised as one of The TRADE’s Rising Stars of Trading and Execution in 2017. He is a continued thought leader in the industry, particularly in the multi-asset sphere, and was subsequently awarded the Buy-side Market Structure Expert of the Year award at Leaders in Trading 2022 by The TRADE after an industry vote.

Matt Mcloughlin, chief commercial officer and partner, Liontrust Asset Management

Former TRADE Rising Star of Trading Execution, Matt McLoughlin has nearly two decades of financial markets experience, including the last eight years he has spent at Liontrust Asset Management. He began his career at the UK’s HM Treasury, before moving to AIG Investments to manage fixed income funds.

He subsequently spent six years as a senior trader at hedge fund RAB Capital before moving to Legal & General Investment Management to trade global equities and derivatives. Following this, in 2015, he shifted to Liontrust to run the trading desk. He assumed the role of chief commercial officer at Liontrust in April, now overseeing the development and commercial strategies of the Group as well as maintaining oversight of the trading desk. Under his stewardship, Liontrust was awarded the Multi-Asset Trading Desk of the Year and Mid-Cap Trading Desk of the Year by The TRADE in 2022 and 2017 respectively.

McLoughlin is a committed contributor to industry discussion and to the development of new talent in the markets. Alongside his core roles, McLoughlin is a director and board member of The Plato Partnership, a member of the Liontrust Investment Partners LLP Management Committee and a member of Liontrust Product & Distribution Committee, as well as having numerous committee memberships at the UK Investment Association.

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As another new category to the 2023 Leaders in Trading awards gala, this award is intended to celebrate those sell-side institutions committed to expanding their electronic trading offerings to aid clients and remain innovative.

Among the key players in this competitive landscape, The TRADE has deemed Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, JP Morgan and TD Cowen the top performers for the 2023 shortlist.

Goldman Sachs 

Goldman Sachs Electronic Trading (GSET) has undergone a makeover in the last 12 months, designed to streamline its operations and expand its algorithmic client offering. Around 72% of what Goldman trades per day in notional is now accounted for by the low touch channel with the roughly 28% left accounted for by high touch and program trading.

In light of the evolving demands of its client base, the Goldman Sachs team has been expanding the remit of its low touch capabilities including the building out of its suite of algorithms on its new proprietary equity trading platform, Atlas. Throughout 2023, the bank has been migrating its algos onto Atlas including its new liquidity seeking algo, Sonar, a dark liquidity seeking algo, Sonar Dark and VWAP. The rest of its algo suite are derivatives of these three. Embedded in its Sonar strategy is a new Dynamic Close Scaling perimeter designed to capture more liquidity in the closing auction and DTC Stealth – a new solution aimed at internalising orders before they touch the street. 

“GS’s desire to help clients improve their trading performance at the parent order level across all trading channels (high touch, program trading and low touch) was a core reason why we kicked off a multi-year, global >$100mm USD investment into our trading stack three years ago. Everything has been built from the ground up, giving us the enormous scale and flexibility needed to operate in the trading landscape we see today,” the bank told The TRADE. 

Jefferies

Jefferies Electronic Trading (JET) offers algorithmic strategies and program trading across Europe, the US and Asia. The broker offers a platform with algorithmic access spanning 45 countries and over 100 liquidity destinations globally. Jefferies offers its clients a full suite of liquidity seeking and benchmark tracking algorithms, both through client integration and via FIX architecture to OEMS providers.

Alongside the firm’s liquidity seeking, next generation, auction and listed based algorithms, Jefferies offers its clients workflow solutions allowing them to switch between strategies or utilise tiered strategies, and a suite of customisable algorithmic strategies across VWAP, TWAP and others. It’s constantly working with its buy-side clients to develop and tailor new strategies to meet their needs including continuously developing its growing algo wheel offering, creating new strategies around the close in light of the market’s shift to the final portion of the trading day and new tools for order aggregation amid industry consolidation.

It has previously been ranked number one US electronic trading product and service quality provider and number one most helpful execution broker during the covid-related market crisis by Coalition Greenwich. Jefferies won the Algorithmic Trading Best Customer Support & Consulting at the Leaders in Trading Awards 2019. 

JP Morgan 

JP Morgan moved to expand its rates algo franchise to support the market’s wider electronification of rates trading – which has historically had limited algo usage and instead favoured risk transfer via RFS and RFQ for pricing and execution – in May.

As part of the expansion, JP Morgan now offers a complete set of algo order types available in rates across time, limit and market. The offering is available via the bank’s single dealer platform, Execute, and via API, with plans to get the offering live with FlexTrade and Tradeweb in the future. The bank launched its existing TWAP rates and adaptive algos last year. Both use JP Morgan’s internalised liquidity pool.

Alongside the expansion, JP Morgan also became the first dealer to go live on Bloomberg for automated US treasuries algo execution, meaning clients can now place an order on the platform and executions are streamed back for clients in real time with electronic trade booking once the order is done. The move meant the bank’s rates algo offering became equal to its long-standing FX algos offering in terms of analysis and tools available.

“Algos help clients manage costs, efficiently access liquidity and are an important utility in the toolkit given the current market environment. Other benefits include the time savings associated with the automation of workflows, the ability to access multiple different sources of liquidity, and the availability of pre- and post-trade analytics,” Chi Nzelu, head of FICC eTrading, JP Morgan, told The TRADE at the time of the announcement. 

JP Morgan won the Algorithmic Trading Best Provider – Multi-User Clients Award at Leaders in Trading 2022.

TD Cowen 

Despite the industry challenges posed by consolidation and declining market volumes, TD Cowen’s European electronic trading team has gone from strength to strength in the last 12 months. In a time when many are making difficult decisions around downsizing, TD Cowen has expanded its European electronic trading business, continuing to hire talent to reinforce its team to meet growing demand from clients under the leadership of Tom Campbell.

Since its launch in 2020, TD Cowen’s equities market share has continued to grow in the European market. Recent developments have further accelerated the firm’s progress, including its acquisition by The Toronto-Dominion Bank for $1.3 billion. “This strategic move provided a springboard for further growth, opening new opportunities and strengthening its market presence,” Cowen told The TRADE.

“At the heart of TD Cowen’s success lies a commitment to best-in-class client coverage. Its thoughtful liquidity interaction and market-leading dark liquidity seeking algorithms enable the team to not only stay ahead of the competition but also manage costs more effectively for clients. Its agility and adaptability to client needs in algo trading is truly exceptional, exemplified by its ability to swiftly implement changes intraday (or where necessary overnight) — a feat that larger institutions struggle to match.”

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Upwards of 30% of volumes now take place in the Closing Auction in Europe. This Editors’ Choice category – which is new to Leaders in Trading 2023 – is designed to celebrate those venues most committed to innovating the final portion of the trading day to help their clients meet the new demands of the market as this trend continues to develop.

Among the key players in this landscape, The TRADE has selected Aquis Exchange, Cboe Global Markets, SIX Swiss Exchange, and LSEG’s Turquoise for the 2023 shortlist, following various individual achievements over the last 12 months.

Aquis Exchange

Aquis Market at Close has gained significant traction over the course of the last 12 months, now operating in 14 markets and representing 5% of all value traded across Europe in the Close. It is now the largest alternative closing auction mechanism in Europe. 

Aquis’ MaC operates according to a sequential four-phase execution process. According to the exchange, MaC minimises user risk by rejecting or cancelling orders for a stock if the market-of-listing auction for that stock is extended or cancelled. While clearing and settlement on the mechanism takes place in the same way as other executions on Aquis, members can also choose to enable clearing suppression for trades matched against themselves.

In the past year, Aquis added a third client to the MaC and launched a new pricing model aimed at giving members the option to trade at 0.1bps. “This opens up the offering to the wider market, with particular appeal for smaller firms,” the venue confirmed. As an alternative to the primary exchanges, the MaC brings greater competition to the closing auction sphere. The venue claims that clients save 80% of the costs of trading in the close on the primary when using the MaC.

Cboe Global Markets

Launched in Summer 2020, Cboe Closing Cross (3C) is a mechanism aimed at allowing traders to continue trading after market close in Pan-European markets for a 25-minute window. It’s designed as an alternative to closing auctions which have continued to surge in popularity, particularly in Europe, in recent years.

Cboe Closing Cross allows members to enter limit orders into frequent or periodic auctions that run every 15 seconds. The system claims to avoid the complexity and costs associated with other end of day trading sessions, instead offering a “one stop solution for customers looking to execute their post close trading activities across 18 European markets.”

Unlike other closing mechanisms available it does not utilise order lock ins, allowing for greater flexibility around cancellation at any time which reduces risk for users. It also boasts full order book transparency including pre-trade in its data feed and indicative crossing summaries, meaning all market participants can see in price and size or quantity in real-time for all price levels that are predicted to execute in the cross.

In the US, Cboe has a separate alternative to primary market closing auctions and off-exchange venues for execution of Market-On-Close (MOC) orders, named Cboe Market Close (CMC). Also launched in 2020, members can route MOC orders to CMC, where they are pre-matched with other MOC orders at 3:49 pm Eastern Time. CMC will publish its matched shares following the cut-off time. The trades are then executed when the official closing price is published, saving participants from paying closing auction fees charged by the primary listing market on orders that are not price forming.

SIX Swiss Exchange

SIX Swiss Exchange launched a new functionality to protect asset managers from market impact when executing large orders at the Close, in April. Named the Closing Auction Volume Discovery (AVD), the new functionality is built on SIX’s dark pool SwissAtMid and has a hidden order type that supports discrete submission of liquidity into the auction that was previously withheld or place on alternative venues. The new functionality brings the hidden liquidity into the SIX Swiss Exchange order book where it’s executed if it’s flagged.

This liquidity AVD automatically checks whether there is a buyer on the other side of the market that wants to buy or sell the shares. If a match is found at the closing price, the two counterparties will be automatically matched without impacting the closing price. If a match is not found then there is no trade, but the order is still never disclosed to the market.

The exchange claims the new offering enhances speed of execution, meaning firms can now execute in one session as opposed to taking four or five days to unwind. Speaking to The TRADE at TradeTech Europe 2023 Simon Mason, head of equity products for UK and Ireland at SIX, said the new dark order is designed to help buy-side users minimise their market impact while also still making the best of the Closing Auction.

Turquoise

Launched in 2020 as part of a collaboration between the London Stock Exchange Group and not-for-profit group Plato Partnership, Turquoise Plato Trade At Last is a mechanism whereby investors can seek further liquidity following the closing auction of LSEG’s primary market – or the relevant European primary market for their securities.

The Trade At Last mechanism allows traders to submit firm and conditional orders for an additional ten minutes after the closing auction has completed its price formation process and published the official closing price at 4.35 pm.

This is done via a dark undisclosed execution channel. “We are able to do this whilst respecting the necessary price formation process of the primary venue,” the exchange group confirmed. Turquoise Plato Trade At Last recorded the most active day of the year so far on 20 April with €5.4mn traded through the functionality and recorded its second largest ever trade on 14 August. In H1 2023, over €53 million (single) were executed on Turquoise Plato Trade at Last, 47% higher than the total value traded in the whole of 2022.

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