Nilesh Jethwa, head of trading at Leonteq, has been appointed head of the structured solutions division, replacing founding partner Michael Hartweg (pictured) who will lead the firm's new white-labeling and platform development division, to be launched next month.
From January 1, Jethwa will be in charge of Leonteq's structured solutions division, which will concentrate on the trading and sales functions with around 70 staff. In his new role, he will report into the firm's chief executive, Jan Schoch.
Jethwa joined Leonteq in May 2008 and is currently head of trading. Prior to joining the Swiss investment service provider he worked in the structured products business at Lehman Brothers as head of single stock exotics trading, Europe & Middle-East, from 2000.
Leonteq also announced the launch of a new white-labelling and platform development division. The new division, which begins work at the start of the new year, has been charged with advancing Leonteq's core white-labelling strategy while driving developments of its technology platform including the design of new features and further build-out of modules such as its "constructor", which allows professional investors to create their own investment products.
"Since we delivered the proof of concept of our white-labelling strategy with Notenstein Private Bank earlier this year, we have further increased our focus on this area as well as on our technology platform, which forms the basis of our white-labelling efforts," said Jan Schoch, chief executive of Leonteq. "The creation of a new dedicated white-labelling and platform development division is a logical next step and will help advance our core strategy going forward."
The new division will have responsibility for relationship management and the development of existing white-labelling partnerships in the banking area (mainly Notenstein Private Bank) as well as the strengthening of the firm's white-labelling strategy.
The firm said that its white-labelling partnerships in the life and pensions fields (such as Helvetia) will continue to be managed by Leonteq's asset management and pension solutions division.
The new division will have a headcount of around 20, including the structuring and quantitative analytics teams which were previously integrated in the firm's structured solutions team, and will be led by Michael Hartweg, deputy chief executive and currently head of structured solutions of Leonteq.