The International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. (ISDA) today announced that Katherine Tew Darras has assumed the role of ISDA’s general counsel, Americas, and head of Equity, FX and Interest Rate Legal. In her new role, Darras reports to David Geen who became ISDA’s general counsel, effective January 1.
"This appointment reflects the importance of Katherine’s role within ISDA and the industry. Her extensive work has contributed to refining the process by which a wide and varied range of equity derivatives are documented and transacted globally, said Robert Pickel, executive director, ceo, ISDA. "Katherine’s efforts to liaise with all ISDA members and her outreach to the hedge fund community in particular make her a great asset to this organization," he added.
Darras joined ISDA in 2001 as assistant general counsel. Since then, she has focused on equity, FX and interest rate derivatives as well as legal and regulatory matters in Canada. Over the past year, in particular, she has led ISDA’s efforts to identify and execute an equity documentation strategy that is beneficial to the market and its continuing goals of operational efficiency. Darras is based in ISDA’s New York office.
As part of her new role, Darras will also take on responsibility for ISDA’s Latin America Committee and will continue her work in Canada.
Previously, Darras was an associate at Salans in New York where she worked in the financial institutions group. Before that she worked at CIBC in Toronto.
Concurrently, Mark New was promoted to assistant general counsel. Mr New joined ISDA in 2007 and is based in ISDA’s Washington D.C. office. He focuses primarily on credit derivatives documentation.
Before joining ISDA in 2007 New was a structurer on the European Structured Credit Products desk at Citigroup Global Markets Limited in London. In that capacity, he worked on new product development and structuring credit transactions including managed synthetic CDOs and credit CPPI. Prior to that, he was an associate in the Derivatives and Structured Finance group at Allen & Overy in London.
