Saxo Bank appoints former GAIN Capital executive Ben Smoker as CEO of Australian operations

Saxo Capital Markets has today announced the appointment of a new CEO for its Australian operations.

Ben Smoker has taken the lead position at Saxo Capital Markets in Sydney, bringing with him over 20 years of senior level industry experience.

Mr. Smoker has joined Saxo Capital Markets, a wholly owned subsidiary of technology-led Danish electronic trading company Saxo Bank from GAIN Capital in Sydney Austalia, where he was Country Head.

Following the acquisition of British spread betting and CFD company City Index by GAIN Capital which was completed on April 1, 2015, Mr. Smoker was transferred from CEO of City Index’s Australian division to become Country Head at GAIN Capital Austalia as part of the global expansion plan that GAIN Capital had embarked on by acquiring City Index.

Mr. Smoker was actively involved in the integration process in the period during which GAIN Capital amalgamated City Index’s client base and systems into its own.

In total, Mr. Smoker spent almost four years at the company, having joined City index in November 2012 from wealth management company Cashel House.

At Cashel House, Mr. Smoker was a Wealth Manager and Specialist Consultant, servicing the company’s high net worth clients and wholesale advisers, as well as financial planners with regard to equities and derivatives.

Eight years at the Australian division of British multinational banking institution RBS Global Banking & Markets in Sydney preceded Mr. Smoker’s tenure at Cashel House.

During his time at RBS, Mr. Smoker was a Sales Trader within the equities and listed equity products division, having joined the company in September 2003 from Dutch bank ABN AMRO where he was Director of Equity Derivatives Sales Trading for four years.

Vice Presdiencies at Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and Blake Dawson take Mr. Smoker’s career back to 1993 at which time he graduated from University of Sydney with a Batchelor of Laws( (LLB) degree.

Mr. Smoker continued to further his education during his career, completing a Masters degree from the University of Western Sydney in Financial Planning in 2012, and obtaining a Certificate of Prime Broking and Finance from New York Institute of Finance in 2011.

FinanceFeeds knows Mr. Smoker very well, and wishes him great success in this new leadership position with one of the most prestigious electronic trading companies in the industy, Saxo Bank.

Today, Adam Reynolds, Saxo Capital Markets CEO for Asia Pacific in Singapore welcomed Mr. Smoker to the executive team and looks forward to expansion of the company’s white label end to end solution, as well as furthering the global presence of the device neutral SaxoTraderGo platform.

Photograph: Saxo Bank’s Head Office, Hellerup, Denmark. Copyright FinanceFeeds