Rich Herman, who took over as sole head of Deutsche Bank’s fixed income and currencies trading business just six months ago, has decided to leave the bank to travel and pursue opportunities outside the industry, according to internal memos seen by IFR.
Herman is a veteran of the bank, having spent 15 years in trading, managing various rates businesses around the world. He was appointed as global co-head of FIC alongside Zar Amrolia in February 2014, before Amrolia stepped aside to take on a technology development role in November.
The departure comes at a momentous time for the fixed income house, and less than two weeks after it announced major changes to its investment bank – including cutting €200bn of assets, many of which will come from fixed income – as it seeks to boost poor returns.
”Over those 20 years I have had a fabulous time working across trading, structuring, and sales in London, New York and Tokyo. I have met and worked with so many intelligent, funny, capable people,” Herman wrote to colleagues in a memo seen by IFR. “I have been truly blessed.”
“However, I’ve decided that it’s time for me to move on. My family and I have given it a lot of thought, and we feel that now is a good time for me to go in a different direction. There are a lot of things I still want to accomplish outside of finance, and I’m very excited to embark upon them. But for a short period of time at least, to quote Samuel Jackson in Pulp Fiction, I’m going to ‘walk the Earth’.”
Herman’s team will now report directly to Colin Fan, co-head of the investment bank. Ahmet Arinc will continue as head of FX. Sam Wisnia and Tom Hartnett will remain head of rates in Europe and the Americas respectively. In Asia, Michael Ormaechea will continue to oversee FIC.
Tom Humphrey on an interim basis will become head of credit and take over responsibility for FIC’s regulatory, central and Americas region functions, in addition to his current role as head of the investment bank in the Americas.
