As 2024 begins, SRP looks back at the most relevant people moves stories in 2023 highlighting new hires and exits at the main issuers of structured products across markets.

DBS

The Singaporean bank started 2023 with the promotion of Jeremy Kok (right) to lead its treasury & markets (T&M) division in Hong Kong SAR.

Kok was charged with managing market risk exposures, leading new product initiatives to meet evolving market demands, and setting the strategic direction for pricing models and systems development to drive the derivatives and structured products business.

In his new role, Kok oversees all aspects of the T&M division, driving business strategy across all functions including sales, trading, and fixed income. He also represents the bank’s T&M business as a member of the DBS Hong Kong Management Committee.

Prior to the promotion, Kok held dual roles as managing director, regional head of credit derivatives and quant tech modelling at DBS. During this time, he set up the bank’s fund structuring unit which launched T&M’s first variable capital company fund in Singapore. Kok joined DBS Bank in September 2006.

Kok succeeded Tak Lap Leung, who relocated to Singapore to assume the role of group head of T&M advisory sales in February 2023.

Deutsche Bank

At the end of June, Deutsche Bank appointed Eleanor Lam, a former Credit Suisse banker, as managing director and market head for South-East Asia in the International Private Bank (IPB).

Based in Singapore, Lam reports to Johanes Oeni, head of IPB, South-east Asia. Lam is responsible for managing and acquiring the private and corporate portfolios of ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) individuals, entrepreneurs, and their families in the region.

Lam was charged with identifying cross-divisional business opportunities to leverage the German bank’s product suite across wealth management, the investment bank and the corporate bank for entrepreneurs and their companies.

Lam joined Deutsche Bank with over 24 years of industry experience, most recently at Credit Suisse where she was a senior client partner in Singapore market. Prior to that, she spent nine years at UBS.

Michael Vonmoos (right) joined the German bank in Q3 23 as managing director and head of structured solutions sales Switzerland in Zurich. In this role, Vonmoos reports to Leonardo Doser, head of the bank’s markets distribution Switzerland.

Vonmoos has more than 16 years of experience in derivatives and structured products, most recently as head of structured products & institutional solutions sales Switzerland at Credit Suisse. Until October 2023, he served the Swiss Structured Products Association (SSPA) as a board member responsible for the department ‘members’. Vonmoos was succeeded at the SSPA by Markus Bader, the head of equity and structured products at Zürcher Kantonalbank.

Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs Group made several changes to the senior management team in its equity trading division following the retirement of Joe Montesano, head of equity trading for the Americas, in March 2023.

Partner and global head of exotics trading Dimitrios Nikolakopoulos was appointed global head of equity structured products. Nikolakopoulos has spent the last 10 years at Goldman. Prior to that he was at J.P. Morgan Chase for 13 years where he held several senior roles in equity exotics & hybrids trading.

Jameson Schriber (right) was named head Americas delta one, adding this role to his current responsibilities as global head of one delta strats and engineering, and global co-head of equities derivatives and prime strats. Schriber joined the Goldman in 2016.

Working with Schriber to scale risk intermediation across Goldman's Americas cash business and take charge of the ETF business is Anne-Victoire Auriault who joined the firm in 2012. Auriault retained her role as head of global program trading.

Travis Chmelka, who joined Goldman in 2004 and was named managing director in 2013 and partner in 2020, was appointed head of flow derivatives Americas with Dmitri Potishko and Erdit Hoxha co-heading the bank’s global flow derivatives and emerging markets trading.

In addition, Cyril Goddeeris continued to lead global equity financing and retain his current role as co-head of global prime services and head of global securities lending and synthetic trading.

Nishi Somaiya (right), global co-head of growth equity, transitioned to wealth management with new responsibilities as global head of private banking, lending, and deposits.

In this role, Somaiya is working with teams from Private Wealth Management, Workplace & Personal Wealth, Marcus Savings & Invest, and the wider firm to develop ‘creative solutions and drive future franchise expansion’. She joined Goldman in 2001 and was promoted to managing director in 2011 before becoming a partner in 2016.

Most recently, Somaiya was co-head of growth equity since 2020. She previously led the private capital branch of the European Special Situations Group, which concentrated in growth equity and middle market loans.

The US investment bank also confirmed that Darren Cohen and Stephanie Hui retained their roles as co-heads of growth equity’s global operations and chief investment officers. The latter remained the head of private and growth equity in Asia Pacific, while Cohen continued to lead growth equity in the Americas and moved up to lead Emea.

In Q4, Goldman doubled down on its coverage of the registered investment advisor (RIA) segment in the US despite the sale of its Personal Financial Management unit and the embedding of its consumer finance platform Marcus into the unified asset and wealth management division.

Adam Siegler (right) was appointed head of the third-party wealth business, Americas, within the global banking and markets division to lead the One Goldman Sachs Registered Investment Advisor strategy, an initiative to bring its capabilities across divisions to the US RIA market.

Siegler was made managing director in 2019 and took responsibility of the bank’s Private Investor Products Group (PIPG) in the Americas, which focuses on the pricing, distribution, origination, and trading of securitised derivative products across all major asset classes. It is targeted at private banks, retail banks, online brokers and other distributors that provide structured solutions to high net worth or retail investors.

In his expanded role, Siegler works with teams across global banking & markets (GBM) and asset & wealth management to provide an ‘integrated and comprehensive approach’ to serving its RIA clients.

In addition to his new firmwide responsibilities, Siegler continued to lead the Americas retail client segment for equities, the PIPG, Goldman Sachs Advisor Solutions (GSAS) and Goldman Sachs Select in GBM.

Siegler joined Goldman Sachs in 2018 as vice president, head of private investor group Americas, and was named managing director in 2019 – he joined Goldman from Barclays Investment Bank where he spent almost 10 years as a director, equity derivatives. He transferred to Barclays in September 2008 following the collapse of Lehman Brothers where Siegler was an associate for almost three years.

Main image: Bluraz/Adobe Stock.