JERSEY CITY, N.J., April 26, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Direct Edge, America's newest stock exchange, today announced the appointment of 10 leading industry professionals and academics who will serve as independent directors on the Boards of its two new exchanges, which were granted approval by the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission in March.
William O'Brien, Chief Executive Officer, Direct Edge, said, "We are incredibly pleased to have such an accomplished, well respected group join the Boards of our new exchanges. Their wealth of experience, depth of knowledge, and forward thinking will help drive our continued efforts to innovate and to meet the various needs of our customers."
Below is a brief biography of each individual director (in alphabetical order):
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Professor James Angel (Georgetown University) specializes in the structure and regulation of financial markets around the world, and he has visited over 50 financial exchanges around the world. His current research focuses on short selling and regulation. He teaches undergraduate, MBA, and executive courses, including Financial Crises: Past Present and Future. Other courses include World Equity Markets and Regulation in Financial Markets. Professor Angel has testified before Congress about issues relating to the design of financial markets. In addition, he has been quoted in hundreds of newspaper articles and has appeared numerous times on radio and television, including National Public Radio and the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
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Larry Bergmann practiced law for several years in the Washington office of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP after three decades of service to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Bergmann joined the Commission in 1975 and served in several capacities, becoming Senior Associate Director in the Division of Market Regulation (now Trading and Markets). In his career of increasingly diverse and substantial responsibilities, Bergmann has received numerous awards, including the Commission's highest, the Distinguished Service Award, and the Presidential Rank Meritorious Service Award.
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Stephen Brodsky is a Managing Director at Vernon & Park Capital, a private equity firm focused on investments in the financial markets sector. Most recently, Mr. Brodsky was the President of CHX Holdings, Inc., the parent company of the Chicago Stock Exchange, where he was responsible for the financial, strategic planning and marketing and sales departments of the Exchange. Prior to that, Mr. Brodsky worked in the investment banking division of Mesirow Financial where he focused on mergers and acquisitions and the analysis of strategic alternatives for companies in the financial services industry. Mr. Brodsky began his career with John Nuveen & Co., Inc.
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William Dailey is a Special Counsel at Fox Rothschild LLP where he focuses his practice on securities regulatory, litigation and compliance issues, but also works on a variety of general corporate and employment matters. He has experience handling major regulatory proceedings, class actions, and federal, criminal and other litigation. In addition, he managed a series of corporate reorganizations and over $300 million in private placements — all involving a publicly traded, major investment bank. Mr. Dailey has worked on matters involving the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Securities Act of 1933, the Investment Adviser Act of 1940, the Investment Company Act of 1940, state securities laws regarding broker-dealers and investment advisers, SRO rules and more. Mr. Dailey has represented numerous broker-dealers and their employees in legal and regulatory matters, including preparing employee witnesses for (and representing them in) effective testimonies before the SEC, NYSE, NASD (now FINRA), AMEX and ISE, and obtaining very favorable results in numerous regulatory investigations and other inquiries.
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Scott Ganelles is the Chief Executive Officer at Ipreo. He came to the company from i-Deal where he filled the role of CEO since its inception. Prior to i-Deal, Mr. Ganelles was President of the Carson Group, a financial information services firm focused on corporate strategic intelligence and investor relations. As a co-founding partner and President of Carson since 1990, Mr. Ganelles was one of the prime architects and leaders in Carson's development from a start-up to a multimillion dollar enterprise.
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Patrick Healy is the Chief Executive Officer of The Issuer Advisory Group, a firm dedicated to assisting public companies and raising their awareness about how listing and trading market structure dynamics affect the trading of their shares. Mr. Healy served as a Director of the NASD/Nasdaq, and as Vice Chairman of Bear Hunter Holdings/Bear Wagner Specialists, where he led the firm's overall NYSE business development and issuer services program. Mr. Healy received his BA in accounting and economics from Baldwin Wallace College and his MBA from Cleveland State University. A CPA, Mr. Healy appears periodically on CNBC as an expert regarding the capital markets needs of publicly-traded companies.
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Sam Scott Miller is senior counsel in the New York office of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, and serves as Chairman of the Market Regulation Group. He concentrates his practice in the regulation of financial intermediaries. Mr. Miller, and members of the group, acted as counsel to the International Securities Exchange in its registration with the SEC - the first such new exchange in twenty-five years. His group also has been in the forefront of electronic brokerage services, including representing Schwab petitioning the SEC for a structural overhaul of the market-data regime, and assisting Off Road Capital in setting up a marketplace for private securities.
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Mark Minister has served in a variety of senior executive positions in the trading and financial information industries over the past forty years, most recently as the Group Chief Executive Officer for brokerage and transaction operations for SunGard Data Systems. Prior to SunGard, Mr. Minister was the President and CEO of Bridge Trading. Mr. Minister has served on various SEC and NYSE committees and commissions.
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George Munoz is Principal of Munoz Investment Banking Group, LLC, a Washington DC based firm focused on the Emerging Markets. He is also a partner in the Chicago based law firm of Tobin, Petkus & Munoz. Mr. Munoz is a former Assistant Secretary and CFO of the U.S. Treasury Department (1993-97), and served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (1997-2001), an independent federal agency that provides financing and political risk insurance for investments in the emerging market countries. Mr. Munoz currently serves on the Presidential Commission on White House Fellows, and is a Trustee of the National Geographic Society.
- Richard D. Schenkman is Managing Partner of Elm Tree Group LLC, a private investment firm. Prior to establishing Elm Tree, Mr. Schenkman held senior positions in the securities industry. He was a partner in, and CEO of BRUT, LLC, an electronic institutional equity broker. As a member of Brut's Board of Directors, Mr. Schenkman worked in conjunction with other investors, comprised of Wall Street's most prestigious firms at the time, including: Bear Stearns; Goldman Sachs; Knight Trading; Merrill Lynch; Morgan Stanley; Salomon Smith Barney; and SunGard Data. Under Mr. Schenkman's leadership, Brut's core business grew significantly and he led the expansion of Brut into new market segments, both in the US and Europe. Mr. Schenkman increased Brut's valuation in his years there, and he successfully negotiated Brut's sale. Prior to joining Brut, Mr. Schenkman was COO of Instinet Corporation.
More information about Direct Edge is available at www.directedge.com.
About Direct Edge
Direct Edge, America's newest stock exchange, offers the next generation of displayed markets. With U.S. cash equities volume routinely exceeding 1 billion shares per day, Direct Edge uses multiple ECN and exchange platforms and unique order types to match complementary forms of liquidity based on sensitivity to transaction cost, fill rate, and fill speed, while maintaining high execution quality and low latencies. Headquartered in Jersey City, N.J., Direct Edge is owned by a consortium that includes the International Securities Exchange, Knight Capital Group, Inc., Citadel Derivatives Group, The Goldman Sachs Group, and J.P. Morgan. More information about Direct Edge is available at http://www.directedge.com. Everybody Needs Some Edge.
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