"We are very pleased to welcome Ned onboard to lead Chi-East. His wealth of experience will be invaluable as we establish the leading trading platform for Pan-Asian securities for our customers"

Mr Phillips was most recently the CEO of BlocSec, an Asia-based crossing network. In the 18 years that he has lived and worked in Asia, he has focused on agency and electronic equity trading - in particular, on growing the alternative crossing network community.

He graduated with an honours degree in Economics from Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh in 1990, and moved to Asia in early 1991, working in Australia and Hong Kong. He began his career in the financial industry in 1994 when he joined Edinburgh Financial Publishing in Hong Kong.

In 1999, he joined E*TRADE to work in its agency equity division, specalising in the Asian equity markets. Four years later, Mr Phillips joined Investment Technology Group (ITG) as Head of Sales and established its Singapore office. He then returned to E*TRADE in 2006 to be its Asian and Japan Managing Director, responsible for its entire regional institutional equity business.

"We are very pleased to welcome Ned onboard to lead Chi-East. His wealth of experience will be invaluable as we establish the leading trading platform for Pan-Asian securities for our customers," said Mr Gan Seow Ann, Chairman of Chi-East.

In August 2009, Chi-X Global joined forces with SGX to develop and launch the first exchange-backed non-displayed trading platform in Asia, starting with select securities listed in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore. The non-displayed trading platform will operate with the appropriate regulatory approvals and controls, reporting, settlement systems and compliance standards. The name Chi-East was chosen to leverage Chi-X Global's strong global brand, while at the same time emphasizing the venture's commitment to, and focus on, Asia.

Chi-East will act as an independent liquidity aggregator for the sell side and offer another execution option in the form of a non-displayed venue that will expand the range of available solutions for conducting block transactions with price improvement. Chi-Tech, the technology subsidiary of Chi-X Global, will provide the technology for the new trading platform.