Clive founded Contango Markets in 1999 and the company has developed into one of the world’s leading capital markets and commodities consultancies. Show more
Our team is drawn from experienced market professionals each of whom has held senior positions within commercial companies specialising in all sectors of the OTC and exchange-traded markets.
We specialise in product and market development for exchanges, banks, IDBs, clearing houses and other primary market participants for a blue chip client base. Our product expertise extends across the entire range of cash and derivatives asset classes.
Technology companies are a key client segment. We assist them in development of new products and services for the derivatives and cash markets. We also work with these organizations on M&A activity: from strategy development and target identification through to detailed due diligence and negotiation tactics.
This combination of knowledge of both product and technology expertise provides clients with a unique resource upon which to draw. Our results focused approach means that clients value our input and return to us, in some cases many times over, for further projects.
In essence, Contango Markets is a team of world class “market mechanics” who are not afraid to get their hands dirty and whose depth of experience and track record of success is unlikely to be matched.
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Clive Furness, Managing Director
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Clive is widely respected throughout the global exchange-traded derivatives business for his in-depth knowledge of what makes the markets tick in terms of product design, business development, market infrastructure and IT. Starting out in 1978 he was a broker and trader for several major houses before joining the J.Aron division of Goldman Sachs. On leaving trading he was appointed Director of Business/Market Development at the LCE and LIFFE before founding Contango Markets, a company which not only reflects his passion for the markets but also bears the hallmark of his professionalism and originality of thought.
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David Setters, Senior Associate
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David has been well-known in the industry since the early 80s when he helped establish the embryonic Futures & Options World and associated businesses. After almost 20 years as Managing Director he joined Contango Markets where his extensive knowledge of the commercial landscape for trading venues, brokerage firms, IT suppliers, professional trading firms and market-users across the range of asset classes has proven invaluable to clients along with his close understanding of the trends which continue to evolve and shape international derivatives business.
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Brian Cooke, Senior Associate
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Brian’s career in financial software and services spans almost forty years, with more than twenty spent in senior management positions. His extensive experience encompasses Europe, North America and Asia Pacific and includes the management of ASP operations. Brian has managed the development, sale, implementation and support of systems in investment administration and accounting, portfolio management, taxation, banking and trust accounting, exchange clearing and settlement, trading, real-time risk management and C++ class libraries, across all asset classes.
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Neil Davison, Senior Associate
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Neil is armed with extensive experience of broking, trading, trading vehicles and the dynamics of technical analysis after years of involvement in futures markets. He worked for several mainstream brokerage houses and also ran his own LIFFE exchange floor operation covering mainly soft commodities. He was then responsible for proprietary futures books at Man Holdings before heading up a softs brokerage team at Sucden. This led to the development of a successful Managed Futures Fund(CTA). More recently he was at Aberdeen Asset Management where he scrutinised and recommended managers for a Natural Resources Fund-of-Funds portfolio.
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David Phipps, Senior Associate
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David has almost 30 years experience in commodity markets having held senior positions (Head of Commodities/Co-global Head ETD) at investment banks including ABN Amro and UBS. He has in depth experience of the sector including on-exchange and OTC products, commodity risk management and finance. He built and managed commodity trading and broking businesses encompassing base metals, energy, natural gas, power, carbon, softs, agriculturals and freight. He was also CEO of a UK AIM listed PLC specialist commodities company. He has in depth experience of strategic and operational planning, business development, credit and market risk management and commodity finance structured solutions.
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Richard Wilkinson, Senior Associate
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Dicky has 30+ years experience in capital markets and has extensive knowledge of bond & equity settlements, including repo & stock loan. He has managed operations teams at several top tier institutions. In 2002 he transitioned into clearing sales for derivative products & was instrumental in Dresdner Bank's development of their third party "RepoClear" offering, including chairing the LCH Fixed Income Operations Working Group. After four years at RBC Europe Ltd (2007-2011) he has worked as a consultant on central counterparty projects for two major exchange/clearing house groups.
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Clare Black, Associate
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Clare has been involved in commodity markets for the past 17 years and has in-depth knowledge of metals and softs. During a 14-year stint at Reuters she managed large teams of journalists in diverse international locations, analysed trends in products and set editorial policy for the commodities desk in EMEA. She has had direct hands-on experience of a producer country, spending 6 years as a correspondent in Ivory Coast. She is particularly skilled at data mining and knows who and where to go to in order to get the information you need to take your business forward.
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Sav Kanagasundaram, Associate
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Sav started work in the derivatives industry in 1995 and worked as a Statistician at both LCE and LIFFE. Following an interlude working in the insurance sector as a Business Analyst and Team Leader, she returned to the derivatives world in 2005. She has worked for Contango Markets since then as an Associate and undertakes research, statistical analysis and coordinates with other businesses on behalf of the team.
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Lawrie Bowell, Business Analyst
Find out moreLawrie has over 25 years experience in the derivatives post-trade environment within a number of top tier investment banks including ABN Amro, Credit Suisse, Dresdner and Sanwa, the vast majority working on ETD and OTC products. He has experience of all the leading ETD systems. For the last 10 years he has been involved in project management/business analysis for system implementation/process improvement, first for a major investment bank and then for specialist IT vendors. With this he has gained considerable knowledge of FSA/CFTC regulatory procedures and requirements relating to ETD products. -
Jonathan Cowan, Consulting Associate
Find out moreJonathan has 20+ years experience in financial and commodity derivatives markets with extensive involvement in front-to-back office technology at senior management level. His trading experience coupled with his understanding of risk management and the trade life-cycle is invaluable in analysing business issues facing management at trading and broking firms. Career highlights include COO, Saratoga (Mako); MD, Westminster Clearing Ltd ( cleared all listed markets including LME); Co-owner and Founder, EccoWare Ltd; Global Head, Futures & Options, eSpeed; e-Commerce F&O Manager BGC; MD, Europe, Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange. -
Steve Clarke, Consulting Associate
Find out moreSteve has an exceptional track record of delivering complex, global financial IT projects including the integration of multiple streams of delivery across management information, reconciliation, intercompany, regulatory and derivatives/FX business processes. He has considerable experience of general and sub ledgers; data warehousing including SAP, Oracle and Hyperion; trading and operations processing platforms including bespoke packages and vendors such as Wall Street Systems, Calypso and Bloomberg; systems development and systems support management; business continuity, incident and risk management. Experience includes senior positions at and major assignments with BAML, RBS, ABN Amro, Ulster Bank and Deutsche Bank. -
Steve Morris, Consulting Associate
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Steve has a proven track record of building and leading operational teams and processes in the financial and commodity derivatives markets. He has in-depth knowledge
of the key derivatives technology software products and has led complete back-office implementation projects.
He held senior operational management positions at major brokerage firms before becoming Operations Manager at Sucden Financial for 14 years. He has extensive experience
of many of the issues facing operations departments today including STP, segregation of funds, static data, reconciliations, brokerage and settlements in addition to matching
and clearing processes.