Hotspot Announces Four Hires and Promotions to its Global Sales Team

BATS Global’s institutional foreign exchange (FX) venue Hotspot announced today that it has promoted two senior executives in its global sales team as the firm looks to further strengthen and expand its offering in the sector.

Benjamin Leit and Jonathan Watras, both mainstays at Hotspot, were promoted to Head of Sales of Europe and Head of Sales of Asia-Pacific respectively. They will both report directly to Sean Cleary, who was promoted to Global Head of Sales in October.

Mr. Leit joined the company from Deutsche Bank back in December 2015 and served most recently as a Director of Sales in Hotspot’s New York office. Based out of London, Benjamin will assume his new role in the second quarter.

Mr. Watras, who joined the firm in April 2016 from Currenex, following a distinguished career in the forex industry, will move to Singapore in the third quarter.

In addition to the promotions of Messrs. Leit and Watras, Hotspot has also hired Matt Vickerman and Rahul Bowry.

Mr. Vickerman joins Hotspot from Sun Trading where he held a senior management position as the Head of Business Development based in Chicago. Prior to that, Vickerman was a key member of institutional forex sales teams at RBS and ABN Amro.

Mr. Bowry first landed at the firm’s Singapore office in January. Before this, he held a range of senior level positions with global brokerage firms and investment banks, including Markit, where he was Head of FX Business Development in the Asia-Pacific region. He also served in senior roles at Standard Chartered and RBS.

Bryan Harkins, Head of U.S. Markets and Global FX at Hotspot, said: “The promotions of Ben and Jon, under Sean’s leadership, are part of the longstanding Bats culture of rewarding strong performers with more responsibility and encouraging and incentivizing them to grow their businesses. We look forward to great successes from both Ben and Jon as part of Sean’s strong team.”

“Foreign exchange trading is a truly global business and these promotions and team additions bolster our business in critical locations. Sean and his team will execute a cohesive strategy that will allow us to capitalize on opportunities across the globe,” he added.