Clearstream Banking Frankfurt has appointed Martina Gruber and Berthold Kracke to its executive board. The appointments come as the German CSD prepares for T2S, the harmonized platform for securities settlement in Europe.
Gruber will head the Clearstream Banking Frankfurts (CBF) Sales and Relationship Management, Customer Service and Marketing areas. Kracke will be responsible for Risk Management and Compliance, Finance and Controls. Both will be joining executive board chairman Stefan Lepp, who became Cleastream Banking Frankfurt CEO in January 2012, and Mathias Papenfuss.
The two fill the board positions left vacant by the departures of Andreas Wolf as CEO of Clearstream Banking in November 2011 and Katja Rosenkranz in March 2013. Wolf had an operational background while Rosenkranz kept the CBF mandate and worked on group-wide cost initiatives.
After Rosenkranz departure, in April 2012, the decision was taken that Clearstream would join T2S. With the latest two appointments the group is now ramping up again ahead of the new settlement framework. Jeffrey Tessler, CEO of parent company Clearstream International and chairman of the supervisory board of Clearstream Banking Frankfurt said one key challenge of the new executive board team would be to position the German CSD for T2S, thus making a decisive contribution to the business success of the entire group.
Gruber says: What has changed on the board of the German CSD is the balance between the operational and the customer facing board members, both sides serving not only the German market or the major Clearstream locations such as Frankfurt and Luxembourg, but almost all global Clearstream locations in their day-to-day management responsibilities. In this setup it’s important that we succeed as a team. The German CSD is not only about Germany – it plays a key role in our T2S positioning across Europe.
Kracke adds: 23 CSDs have committed to join T2S so T2S is no longer a vision – it’s reality. With T2S one of the major challenges is to now demonstrate to the external world and to our customers that we can create the right value proposition for them, but also, internally, that we have a clear direction and take the right decisions to meet the new settlement landscape, a world with T2S as of 2015. To get there, it is important we are in constant dialogue with the clients while having the ability to translate their requests into operational reality. Hence the new setup of the CBF board.”
In Germany, Clearstream has set up five workshop streams on connectivity to help clients prepare for T2S. This also extends to the cross border environment.
Gruber says: T2S will be the game changer in Europe and we run the largest CSD in the Eurozone so its crucial for us to give our customers the right support, to be properly set up and have a proper business approach in place. We intend to pass on the European Central Bank’s T2S settlement fee to our clients without adding any Clearstream margin on top.
Gruber and Kracke are assuming their new duties in addition to their management responsibilities across Clearstream Group: Gruber is head of Relationship Management for German speaking Europe and Central Eastern Europe and Kracke is responsible for quality measures to improve customer satisfaction, reduce risk and increase efficiency.
Grubers career spans a variety of management positions in Deutsche Borse group issue, trading clearing and custody. She has been with Clearstream since August 2002 and has also served as managing director of Deutsche Borse Commodities since July 2007 and worked for two years in clearing at Deutsche Bourse Group.
Kracke has been at Clearstream since January 1998 and has assumed management responsibilities in the operational areas of the business. He was in charge of a variety of strategic projects to position Clearstream globally including setting up of branches in Prague and Singapore.
(JDC)