LME adds chief technology officer

The LME Group, operator of the London Metal Exchange, has appointed Alistair Baldwin as its new chief technology officer. Baldwin will join the group, which offers trading and warehousing services for aluminum, copper, nickel and other metals, in mid-January 2024.

Baldwin, who will succeed Mario Quonils who is relocating to Germany, will report to LME CEO Matthew Chamberlain; to Michael Carty, CEO of the LME Clear service; and to Richard Leung, chief information officer (CIO) of the Hong Kong-based HKEX Group, the owner of the LME. Baldwin also becomes a member of the LME executive committee.

“I would like to thank Mario for his many contributions to the group over the last five years,” Chamberlain says. “He has been instrumental in building out and strengthening our IT function and spearheading our technology transformation program. On behalf of the board and management team, I would like to wish Mario all the very best for the future as he returns to Germany.”

“I am delighted to welcome Alistair to the group. He brings with him 30 years of experience in financial infrastructure and trading technology," Leung adds. "Alistair joins the group at an exciting time, as the deployment of LMEselect version 10 (v10) marks the beginning of the LME’s journey as a trading technology developer and provider.”

Of that new platform, Leung says it will deliver lower latency and enhanced order functionality and kick-starts its aspirations for modernized market structure. He adds that Baldwin’s knowledge and expertise in running in-house technology platforms will prove invaluable in this regard.

Baldwin has previously been employed by United Kingdom-based NatWest Markets, most recently as CIO. He also was a member of the NatWest Markets executive committee and NatWest Group One Bank leadership team. Prior to working for NatWest Markets, Baldwin was with HSBC from 2011 to 2018, working in part to help modernize that bank’s in-house equities technology platform.