The role will encompass the management of all sales and service issues related to GL TRADE London Northern Europe (LNE) customers plus those clients with key regional and global coverage who are located in the UK.

The primary focus of the role will be to maintain and grow the UK based PTD customer base by developing strategies to help promote a wider acceptance and usage of PTD products and services from both existing and new customers. The role includes positions on the PTD Global Executive Committee which is responsible for product strategy and prioritisation globally thus giving the UK business major visibility within the Group's management structure. Reporting lines for the role under GL TRADE's matrix management structure are the CEO of the LNE business unit, Patrick Tessier and the global head of the business line, Laurent Jacquemin.

The PTD business line was formed following the integration of Ubitrade into the Group during 2005. It represents the combined resources of the previous GL CLEARVISION and UBIX product lines and represents 11% of GL TRADE's overall turnover. The UK PTD team comprises 19 staff including local technical services. Local development staff hires are expected during 2006. GL TRADE employs 185 staff in London many of whom provide centralised technical services to the business lines.

Hobbs was previously responsible for sales, marketing and business development of UBIX with Ubitrade and prior to that held senior commercial positions at Deutsche Bank and Rolfe & Nolan.

"Our key objective is to maintain and improve the quality and substance of our existing relationships in the UK. This solid foundation will provide us with the basis to forge ahead and deliver on our strategies for each of our customers. One key aspect will be to leverage the huge technical resources of the GL TRADE Group in the areas of ASP and facilities management services but also our rapid and focussed product development capability," says Hobbs.

"We are pleased with the progress of our product development strategy for the derivatives platform. We have spent the past few months implementing synergies to achieve our integrated front to back solution while preserving the best of breed functionality at each step of the trade's lifecycle. This is a new and original offering in the marketplace," commented Patrick Tessier, CEO of GL TRADE LNE.