Trading Technologies has promoted Robbie McDonnell to run its global sales team as the tech vendor gears up to launch its next generation trading system.

McDonnell, who is currently TT’s managing director of Asia Pacific and based in Sydney, will relocate to Chicago and report directly to chief executive Rick Lane.

The promotion of the 16-year TT veteran follows the departures early this year of senior sales figures Tim Geannopulos and Guy Scott.

McDonnell has been responsible for the global expansion of Trading Technologies after joining the US firm’s London office in 1998 before relocating to Asia in 2006.

Trading Technologies is in the early stages of testing Nextrader, its new cloud-based platform that it will begin delivering to clients later this year.

McDonnell’s early tenure in his new role will be dominated by the roll out of Nextrader, which will replace its current flagship X_Trader and represents the biggest new launch from TT in over a decade.

McDonnell told FOW, however, there is currently no firm schedule for the phase out of X_Trader.

“We will continue to support our current platform for the foreseeable future. We have been working on it for over two years and we are in no rush to move everyone over to it,” said McDonnell.

“There will be a critical mass at some point and we will eventually move everyone across but we will do that when it is right for clients,” McDonnell told FOW.

Nextrader is designed to cut the time it takes Trading Technologies to connect to new markets and asset classes, as well as being fully-hosted and boasting new functionality including the forever audit trail, which captures all data on an account and stores it permanently.

The new platform is also designed to be run on mobile and handheld devices across multiple operating systems.

The upheaval of switching to a new system could create short-term opportunities for rivals, however, a point the new sales head acknowledges.

“When you change anything on this scale of course there are risks,” said McDonnell. “But we know the market very well and we know this is mission critical software. We will be very careful about how we role this product out.

“There are risks to everything but the greater risk is not to do this, not to recognise what technologies are available today. We have a great product but it was built some years ago and we can never be in a position when we are standing still, while our competitors move on,” he added.

McDonnell assumes the role at a time of increased competition for Trading Technologies.

Bloomberg’s acquisition of RTS earlier this month adds considerable fire power to its rival while exchanges continue to promote their own front ends with incentives.