Exclusive: Sources say new GKFX CEO Brian Myers makes his entire annual target in less than a week

For the most part, upward career moves in the FX industry are made as calculated choices, and the responsibilities that come with them are taken in stages, with specific targets on the side of the company as well as the executive.

There are very few surprises at senior executive level, especially within London’s highly developed electronic trading ecosystem whose leaders are astute, accomplished pinnacles of the entire industry.

At GKFX, however, things have been somewhat different, especially during the past few months.

The FCA regulated, British division of the Turkish-owned retail FX brokerage has had two very short term occurrences at CEO level, the first being the departure from the company of Joe Rundle after just four days in the office. Mr. Rundle joined  GKFX as Managing Director in September after spending 12 years at British spread betting stalwart ETX Capital, where he was Head of Trading and Partnerships between July 2010 and August this year, preceded by Head of CFDs and Execution between 2004 and 2010.

As Mr. Rundle moved on to join ThinkMarkets, where he is now Head of Dealing, GKFX drafted in a new CEO, this time Brian Myers, who joined GKFX from OANDA Corporation’s European division OANDA Europe VP where he was VP Sales for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), and the Americas.

Short term events with remarkable consequences sometimes come together, and in the case of GKFX’s senior executives that is certainly the case.

Just two weeks after joining GKFX, Mr. Myers was at the helm when the GBP flash crash occurred in early October. He had been set an annual target when joining the company, which was quite a lofty figure in terms of the amount of revenue he was expected to bring to the company, however instead of taking an entire year to attempt to accomplish this task, it took him just two weeks.

According to a number of sources close to the matter in London, GKFX had profited to such a large degree during the flash crash and had been offering very low spreads and had low (possibly zero) market exposure, that Mr. Myers cleared his annual target in just a matter of a few days, demonstrating that in some cases, unexpected market events can boost one’s career just as easily as cause damage.

Further research into this by FinanceFeeds concluded that whilst a number of sources close to the matter had drawn this conclusion, it must be borne in mind that common practice among many firms when appointing senior executives is to continue to cement the terms of their targets and other aspects of their agreements over a period of time subsequent to them joining a company.

On this basis, this must be viewed with a balanced perspective, and whilst a series of executives in London are privy to information that has demonstrated that Mr. Myers may well have exceeded a target after just two weeks, significant consideration must be given to a possibility that Mr. Myers’ actual targets and set of responsibilities for the year ahead are still in the making.

The execution models employed by a spectrum of firms as well as their risk management techniques is of great interest during times in which extreme market volatility is caused by sudden events, and thus FinanceFeeds is in the process of making a full investigation into this in the interests of transparency.