Industry veteran and electronic trading pioneer, Philippe Buhannic, has passed away following a long battle with ALS.
Tributes to the TradingScreen founder from market participants have been posted on social media following the news that Buhannic died just days ago from the motor neurone disease.
Buhannic was considered a pioneer in the electronic trading space with a career that spanned more than 30 years. He spent five years with Credit Suisse First Boston as head of listed derivatives, electronic trading and fixed income prime brokerage, before his departure in 2000 to establish trading systems provider TradingScreen.
Buhannic served as founder, chairman and chief executive of TradingScreen for more than 16 years, building the company into a global trading platform which included the firm’s flagship execution management system (EMS).
In 2016, Buhannic departed TradingScreen following allegations that he had assaulted a member of staff. He strongly denied the claims, but the FinTech firm appointed a committee to run the business following his suspension, before its now chief executive, Pierre Schroeder, took on the role permanently.
The following year, Buhannic founded NEXSMART, a technology vendor that aimed to solve liquidity and capital shortage challenges for institutions and buy-side firms. NEXSMART provides a software-as-a-service model that connects to order and execution management systems to consolidate information onto a single platform.
Earlier in his career, Buhannic served as chairman and CEO of Fimat Futures, a subsidiary of French investment bank Societe Generale. He was also previously deputy chief financial officer at Credit Commercial de France (CCF), where he developed the FX dealing room outside of Paris, and the global marketing of FX and interest rate products.
“We are saddened by the news that Philippe Buhannic has passed away,” said a statement issued by the Future Industry Association’s (FIA) president and CEO, Walt Lukken, and the chairman of FIA’s board of directors, Jerome Kemp, the global head of futures, clearing and collateral at Citigroup Global Markets. “He served on the board of FIA from 1999 to 2013, promoting modernisation and innovative developments within the futures industry during his tenure.
“Philippe was a hugely influential person in our industry and one of the visionaries who helped drive the technology innovations that transformed the global listed derivatives markets during the 1990s and 2000s. We honour him for his contributions to the industry and express our condolences to his family and friends.”