Nyse Euronext has appointed Duncan Niederauer as chief executive to replace John Thain who is quitting the transatlantic exchange to become the new chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch.
Niederauer, 48, joined the Nyse in April as president and co-chief operating officer following a 22 year career at Goldman Sachs, where he served as managing director and co-head of the equities division execution services franchise.
Niederauer joined the investment bank in 1985 and the equities division in 1987. His experience takes in stints at Archipelago, at a Nyse floor broker and three years in Tokyo working on derivatives and Japanese financial products.
Niederauer succeeds Thain - who also previously worked at Goldman - as head of the exchange on 1 December 2007.
Thain, 52, replaces Stan O'Neal who was ousted as Merrill's CEO and chairman last month after the bank reported wrote down $8.4 billion in assets during the third quarter and reported its largest ever loss.
Over the past four years Thain has led the successful transformation of the Nyse into a public company through the merger with electronic trading network Archipelago and into a global player with the merger of Euronext. He had been widely tipped to take over at Citigroup following the early retirement of Chuck Prince earlier this month.