Highlighting its commitment to its transition management business, Northern Trust has hired Craig Blackbourn as head of transition management for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

This latest appointment supports Northern Trust’s continued investment in its global Capital Markets business which encompasses transition management, brokerage, foreign exchange and securities lending services.

In his new role, Blackbourn is responsible for offering institutional investors across the region transition management solutions that combine risk and project management with global trading expertise.

“Northern Trust is growing our global Capital Markets business and Craig’s appointment demonstrates our commitment to investing in our transition management capabilities for clients across EMEA,” said Andy Clayton, head of Northern Trust Capital Markets EMEA. “Northern Trust deploys a diversity of talent to each transition, bringing expertise from a suite of capital markets products to find the right solution to support our clients’ requirements.”

Blackbourn joins Northern Trust from Nomura International, where he was head of transition management, EMEA. During his career, he has also worked at Lehman Brothers, BNP Paribas Securities Services, Aberdeen Asset Management and both the custody and asset management businesses of Deutsche Bank. He brings more than 22 years of financial services experience to Northern Trust and reports to Ben Jenkins, global head of transition management at Northern Trust. 

“We are delighted about Craig joining our global team and look forward to his leadership for the EMEA transition management business,” said Jenkins. “Northern Trust’s heritage of risk management is built into the execution of our transitions no matter the complexity of the event. It is this approach, combined with our ability to provide a customised capital market solution for each transition, as well as our ability to hire industry experts, such as Craig, that sets us apart.” 

As further evidence of Northern Trust’s commitment to the Capital Markets business, it acquired an institutional equity brokerage business in 2016 to expand capabilities across the EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions. Northern Trust also announced an exclusive partnership with BEx LLC, a leading provider of software solutions in the financial technology sector, to deliver innovative foreign exchange (FX) solutions to meet the growing needs of its clients as they evolve their trading strategies and require increasingly sophisticated support and expertise.

Northern Trust has a 30-year track record of providing capital market solutions in foreign exchange, securities lending, transition management and institutional brokerage services to its diverse global client base.  It has more than 350 employees dedicated to providing capital markets services worldwide from offices in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Toronto, London, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Sydney.