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Christian Katz, Member of the Group Executive Board of SIX and CEO of SIX Swiss Exchange, was elected as the new President of the Federation of European Securities Exchanges (FESE) on 20th November 2013. The election was unanimously approved by the FESE General Assembly. The term of office is three years.
The election of Christian Katz (45) marks the first time that the presidency of FESE has been filled by a Swiss national. The Federation of European Securities Exchanges represents 41 regulated exchanges in 30 European countries. The objectives of FESE's activities are to foster the global competitiveness of European exchanges and to reinforce the key importance of the exchanges for the European and global economy, including in times of regulatory change. The Swiss stock exchange has been represented on the Board of FESE since 2007.
According to Christian Katz, CEO SIX Swiss Exchange: "The European capital markets face big challenges. If we, as stock exchange and infrastructure providers, are to strengthen them further in an environment of rapidly increasing regulatory requirements, the structures must be changed carefully and prudently. We want to tackle this in close collaboration with the regulators and representatives of the financial sector. I look forward to this task and would like to thank FESE for the confidence they have shown in me by appointing me to the presidency."
Christian Katz believes that it is important for all the participants to focus jointly on creating a market structure oriented towards efficiency, safety and competitiveness – in the service of companies, governments, investors and exchange participants. He says that exchanges have a decisive role to play in safeguarding jobs and economic growth, especially given the banks' reluctance to provide corporate finance, partly for regulatory reasons.
In addition, on 20th November 2013, the FESE General Assembly appointed Martin Reck, Managing Director in charge of cash markets at Deutsche Boerse and Mark MacGann, Senior Vice‐President, Head of Government Affairs and Public Advocacy at NYSE Euronext as the new FESE Vice Presidents.
FESE Vice‐President Martin Reck said: “I am happy to serve as Vice‐President to FESE, the renowned association of European stock exchanges. These are challenging times for our industry, as the market structure is significantly changing. A lot of work is ahead of us: The fragmented trading landscape needs more transparency, and not less transparency. We will also strive to pull more trading from the unregulated and dark part of the market into more safe and transparent environments. This is what stock exchanges stand for, and this is what we will continue to promote for the benefit of the real sector. I am excited to take on this challenging task.”
FESE Vice‐President Mark MacGann said: “I am greatly honoured by the support from my peers in the European exchange industry and I look forward to working closely with Christian and Martin in support of FESE’s mission to build more fair, transparent and dynamic European financial markets”.
Following the decision of the FESE General Assembly on 20th November 2013, the FESE Board is composed by:
- Christian Katz from SIX Swiss Exchange (President)
- BME represented by Ramón Adarraga
- CEE Stock Exchange Group represented by Michael Buhl
- Deutsche Börse AG represented by Stefan Mai and Martin Reck (Vice‐President)
- Irish Stock Exchange represented by Deirdre Somers
- London Metal Exchange represented by Nick Ong‐Seng
- Luxembourg Stock Exchange represented by Robert Scharfe
- NASDAQ OMX represented by Magnus Billing
- NYSE Euronext represented by Roland Bellegarde and Mark MacGann (Vice‐President)
- Oslo Børs represented by Bente Landsnes
- Warsaw Stock Exchange represented by Adam Maciejewski
Members of the FESE General Assembly confirmed the appointment of Judith Hardt as Director General of the Federation of European Securities Exchanges (FESE), following the change of the FESE statutes. These appointments take effect immediately following the General Assembly meeting.
