Helps joins from NYSE Liffe where he was Head of Business Development for Fixed Income Derivatives. He has 25 years experience in the futures and options markets including almost 20 years trading in European, US and UK bond and interest rate futures. Helps began his career as a Liffe futures and options floor trader before becoming an independent futures trader.

"I'm delighted to be joining NLX, which is an exciting and innovative solution to the evolving derivatives landscape", said Helps. "The focus is to highlight the competitive benefits that NLX brings to the market, including lower fees, ease of access and margin efficiencies through a horizontal clearing model."

Ahead of its forthcoming launch, NLX has also recently appointed Blake Stephenson as Compliance Director. Stephenson will join NLX in February from the Futures and Options Association (FOA) where he has worked on regulatory advocacy. Prior to joining the FOA, Stephenson worked as a Senior Associate in market supervision at the FSA.

Helps and Stephenson join Carl Slesser, Chief Technology Officer at NLX who joined in 2012 from NYSE Euronext where he was Head of Product Development (Software Engineering). Slesser has previously held senior roles in product development at AEMS and Euronext Liffe.

"These strategic senior appointments build on our existing team as we prepare for the launch of NLX. They are well known in the industry and bring extensive experience and knowledge of our market", said Charlotte Crosswell, Chief Executive Officer of NLX. "I very much look forward to working with them."