Financial market infrastructure group CLS appointed five new members to its board of directors during the group’s annual general meeting on June 4.

The new directors on the board are Teddy Cho (BNY Mellon), Scott Lucas (J.P. Morgan Chase), Akila Raman (Goldman Sachs), Peter Whitelaw (National Australia Bank) and Michael Lawrence (independent / outside director).

Cho serves as managing director and chief information officer for the markets business at BNY Mellon. With a career spanning more than three decades in senior technology roles at major financial institutions – including Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley and Salomon Smith Barney – Cho brings extensive expertise in developing complex technology systems for trading, risk management, post-trade processing and settlement.

Lucas is managing director and head of markets DLT at J.P. Morgan. He leads the development of trading products leveraging emerging DLT market capabilities, represents J.P. Morgan on various industry initiatives related to DLT, and sits on the board of fintech firms Ownera and HQLAx. Lucas spent most of his career in the chief investment office and treasury team at J.P. Morgan. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, Lucas served as an infantry officer for 13 years in the Australian and British armies.

Raman is partner, chief commercial and strategy officer of transaction banking, at Goldman Sachs. She is responsible for scaling Goldman Sachs transaction banking (TxB) – a digital banking platform for corporate and institutional clients. Raman has held several senior roles within Goldman Sachs, including chief operating officer of the investment banking division. Throughout her career, she has advised on numerous complex acquisition financings, brought important debt IPOs to market and mitigated interest rate and foreign currency risk for many of the firm's most important clients. She brings strategic and operating experience to the board.

 Whitelaw is executive general manager, resilience risk, at National Australia Bank. He is responsible for NAB Group’s financial and operational risk management policies, frameworks and risk appetite. Whitelaw has an extensive background in financial markets, having served as a chief risk officer for NAB’s corporate and institutional bank and the Bank of New Zealand. Prior to joining NAB, he held senior risk management positions at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.

Lawrence, a former managing director at Citigroup, has a career spanning more than 25 years at Citi, where he held numerous senior roles. As Citi’s managing director, transaction and processing risk head, he created a new first line risk and control function within markets, tasked with the oversight and management of operational and compliance risks within the operation of business processes end-to-end. He previously served on the board of CLS Group Holdings as a shareholder director.

The CLS board now comprises 21 directors in total, eight of whom are designated as outside or independent directors.

Board chairman Gottfried Leibbrandt says: “We are delighted to welcome the new directors to our board. Their extensive market infrastructure knowledge, combined with their leadership experience and expertise in digital innovation, technology and risk will be invaluable. We look forward to their contributions as we continue to develop CLS’s services to address the evolution of the FX market.”