London C-level executive market on fire: Tickmill, you’re up
Mukid Chowdhury is now the face of Trading 212. This, however, has left a newly vacant seat. Now, it’s Tickmill’s turn to fight for a Chief Financial Officer. The C-level executive market in London is on fire at the moment.
Trading 212 has appointed Mukid Chowdhury to replace Nick Saunders as its Chief Executive Officer. The retail FX and CFD broker snatched his new chief executive from Tickmill, where he was the Group CFO.
Mukid Chowdhury is an industry veteran with nearly twenty years under his belt, having started as Interest Rates Derivatives Product Controller at ING in 2002. A step up was moving to JP Morgan Chase to control Credit Derivatives in 2004.
From 2006 onwards, Mr. Chowdhury took senior positions. First as Goup Financial Controller at City Index and then Head of Finance – Investment Banking at Matrix Group Limited in 2011.
In 2016, he took his first chief executive role. London Capital Group appointed Mr. Chowdhury as UK CEO and Chief Financial Officer, where he led the UK operations for nearly four years until Tickmill onboarded him as Group Chief Financial Officer in January 2020.
GAIN Capital, which is very well capitalized after being recently acquired for $236 million by StoneX, formerly known as INTL FCStone, was looking for a new Head of Cash Equities, based in London.
The broker found in FX industry veteran Nick Saunders the best man for the job. He was the UK CEO at Trading 212, where he was responsible for the broker’s launch of deliverable equities with zero commission.
The Bulgarian retail FX brokerage generated a stir in London, hot on the heels of the launch of its physically deliverable equities product range.
At the time, UK mainstream news outlets reported that “for the first time in the UK’s history, anyone wanting to dabble in shares can trade away without having to pay commission as Trading 212 launches its share trading platform today.”
The then Trading 212 CEO told FinanceFeeds: “I can tell you that there is no smoke and mirrors. Trades in physical equities are traded either on the incumbent exchange (e.g LSE) or an MTF such as BATS. There is no spread mark up; trades are still subject to best execution requirements so we would be breaking FCA rules if there was.
“For smaller trades, we pay the minimal execution costs. Up to point it’s a marketing tool, but one that does offer genuine benefits. We estimate the actual execution costs of a trade at about £1; seen in that light, 10 free trades a month is not a massive cost, but does make you question how the more established brokers get away with such a mark up.”
Nick Saunders had left the CEO seat open at Trading 212 since early April and the broker has finally come up with its best choice to replace Mr. Saunders.
Mukid Chowdhury, an expert in finance who has been CFO and CEO at some of the most prestigious trading firms in the UK, is now the face of Trading 212.
This, however, has left a newly vacant seat. Now, it’s Tickmill’s turn to fight for a new Chief Financial Officer. The C-level executive market in London is on fire at the moment.
