Richard Balarkas, managing director and head of Advanced Execution Services (AES) sales at Credit Suisse, is to leave his position to take up a senior management role at a rival broker.
Tony Mackay, CEO, Instinet Europe, confirmed that Balarkas will be joining Instinet in a senior position as of March 2008.
The success of Chi-X and its growing independence from the Instinet business is likely to demand new senior management structures within both organisations.
Balarkas has represented Credit Suisse on a wide number of regulatory, stock exchange and industry committees and working groups. He has held the position of global co-chair of FIX Protocol since 2005.
Prior to taking up his role as a managing director at Credit Suisse, Balarkas was COO, equity trading, at Barclays de Zoete Wedd (BZW), with responsibility for retail and automated trading.
Balarkas was previously founder and CEO of the City Group for Smaller Companies (CISCO), which played a central role in the creation of new exchanges trading high growth stocks in Europe.
Before forming CISCO, Balarkas was head of national market development in the markets division at the London Stock Exchange (LSE), where he oversaw the introduction of the LSE's first order-driven trading systems.