ICE appoints London-based heads of rates, corporate development

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has made two senior hires in Europe, appointing new heads of interest rate derivatives and corporate development within its London-based derivatives market.

The firm said on Tuesday it has appointed Stelios Tselikas as its head of interest derivatives, moving him from head of corporate development for ICE Clear Europe. At the same time, the Atlanta-based group said it has promoted Nazareen Gilbertson to a new role as head of corporate development, from a position as chief operating officer at ICE Trade Vault Europe. Both appointments were effective on Monday.

Tselikas (pictured) is responsible for ICE’s interest rate futures and options markets, including its flagship Euribor, Gilt, Sterling Overnight Index Average (SONIA) and Swiss Average Rate Overnight (SARON) contracts. He will report to vice president of financial derivatives Caterina Caramaschi.

“Stelios brings invaluable and diverse experience to this role from across ICE’s business lines,” Caramaschi said in a statement. “This coupled with his strong European financial markets background, positions him well to manage and grow our rates complex at a time when investors are turning to our contracts to manage price risk, allocate capital and express views on central bank monetary policy divergence.”

Tselikas, who has been with ICE since 2014, is a former chief operating officer at ICE Benchmark Administration.

ICE has had a bumper year in European and UK interest rates as firms have sought to hedge their exposure to rising interest rates in the region. ICE's flagship three month Euribor contract hit a 10 year high in March when 49.5 million contracts were traded.

But rival exchanges are challenging ICE Futures Europe's dominance of the European short term interest rate (STIR) market. Frankfurt-based Eurex last month said it had signed up 18 firms to a new partnership program covering its STIR complex ahead of the relaunch of its Euribor contract last this month.

CME Group in June reported increasing demand for its euro short term rate (€STR) futures contract, with trading volumes in the first two weeks of June (48,566 lots) beating the total for all of May. The news came after the US group extended its €STR fee waiver program by three months. 

Gilbertson, who has been with ICE for 15 years in which time she helped launch ICE Clear Europe in 2008, now reports to Chris Rhodes, president of ICE Futures Europe in the new role.

Rhodes said: “Nazareen’s product and service development expertise will help harness growth opportunities to the benefit of our clients. As the head of corporate development for IFEU, she will work closely with each asset class head to support the execution of our strategy in European markets and beyond.”

Caramaschi, who has been ICE’s London-based global head of equity derivatives since late 2020, was in October promoted to vice president of financial derivatives responsible for ICE’s equity and interest rates segments.

Rhodes was promoted to his role in June last year after Stuart Williams was promoted to group chief operating officer.