Leman Leaves Citigroup

Citigroup's global corporate and investment banking business is saying goodbye to Jim Leman after 22 years of service. "The firm decided to eliminate my position as part of a reorganization," says Leman, who was managing director of electronic equity trading and connectivity. "They've decided they want to put a few different units together on one plate, and they just decided they were going to do it with a slightly different group of people."

Michael O'Conor, the global steering committee chair of FIX Protocol Ltd, an industry organization dedicated to the promotion of the Financial Information eXchange (FIX) protocol, says that Leman has been fundamental to the development of the real-time electronic-messaging standard. "He has probably been the most significant contributor to the FIX protocol and the FPL since its inception," he says.

Leman says that despite his leaving Citigroup, he plans to stay involved in committees focused on the middle office, FIX and reference data, as well as Omgeo, as an ex-officio.

His next career move is undetermined, Leman says. "There is more than enough opportunity to find things in the industry."