Knight Capital Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: NITE) announced today the appointment of William Karsh as Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Direct Edge ECN.
Mr. Karsh joins Knight from the Bass Division of BTIG, where he was Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer.
Prior to his employment with Bass Trading, he was with Trading Services Group, LLC, where he served as Executive Vice President, Electronic Trading.
"Knight has expanded its electronic services considerably over the past year, and as we further diversify and strengthen our business, we must augment our management team with talented leaders," said James P. Smyth, Senior Managing Director, Head of Broker-Dealer Client Group. "I believe Bill possesses the knowledge, experience and client commitment to help us expand our business. With more than 25 years of financial services experience, Bill brings to Knight the demonstrated ability to turn concepts into significant entities, which we believe will be key in parlaying Direct Edge ECN's services into a greater value-added product for our clients."
At Trading Services Group, LLC, Mr. Karsh created a consultative practice for electronic trading, marketed aggregator products to both hedge funds and more traditional money managers such as mutual fund companies, and negotiated reselling relationships with seven major aggregators. Previously, Mr. Karsh was President and Senior Managing Director at UNX, Inc., an electronic agency and soft dollar solution provider, where his responsibilities included establishing a repatriation product for soft dollar and hard dollar credits to other broker-dealers and independent research boutiques. He was also in charge of all direct terminal sales, agency desk and operations.