As part of its strategy to expand its sales division in London, ADSS, an Abu Dhabi-based financial services firm, announced on Wednesday that it has made two senior hires in its institutional sales operations. Chris Andrews and Steven Whittet have been appointed as Co-Heads of Institutional Sales for the firm’s UK business.

Chris Andrews, Co-Head of Institutional Sales as ADSS — Chris Andrews

Andrews, who will be based in London, joins the company with more than three decades worth of experience in Futures, Forex , Equity and CFD sales trading and account management. His most recent position was Institutional Sales and Account Management at GKFX, a CFD trading, spread betting and foreign exchange broker.

In this role, Andrews was responsible for the sales trading and account management side of the business. During his time at the company, he serviced both the bank's retail and institutional clients.

Before working a GKFX, Andrews has worked at a myriad of financial institutions such as Saxo Capital Markets UK, where he worked in derivatives sales trading, MF Global, Fyshe Global and Cantor Index.

Steven Whittet, Co-Head of Institutional Sales at ADSS — Steven Whittet

Whittet brings his wealth of knowledge of the forex and financial markets to the firm. During his career, he has worked across both banks and brokers. Previously, Whittet has held managerial roles in FX sales at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and ICAP Securities.

Recently, Whittet also worked at GKFX as the Global Head of Institutional Sales. Here he introduced a new Prime Broker and Trading Platform for the firm. Before this, he also worked at The Kyte group as Head of FX.

ADSS is expanding its operations in London

In the aftermath of the recent ESMA regulations, which have redefined the retail brokerage space in the European Union, ADSS has been committed to growing its sales division and operations in the United Kingdom.

To achieve this, the firm has been hiring aggressively. Only last week Finance Magnates reported that ADSS had secured Ashraf Elgarf as Head of Sales Trading for its UK business. At the beginning of August this year, the company also added three new hires to its legal team.

Commenting on the addition of Andrews and Whittet to the team, Paul Webb, CEO at ADSS London, said: “over the last twelve months the Firm has made a considerable investment in our proprietary Orex technology and trading platform, the result of which is a market leading product in the institutional and B2B space."

“Steve and Chris have a strong track record of growing a business, and their significant experience combined with the Orex product is a further clear sign of ADSS ambitions to continue expanding its business model.”

In this role, Andrews was responsible for the sales trading and account management side of the business. During his time at the company, he serviced both the bank's retail and institutional clients.