Financial services provider Swiss Stock Exchange SIX appoints Bjørn Sibbern as new CEO

The stock exchange operator SIX is surprisingly getting a new boss. After just one year as SIX Exchange CEO, Bjørn Sibbern will become CEO of the entire Group at the beginning of 2025.

Sibbern succeeds Jos Dijsselhof, who will be leaving SIX after seven years, according to a press release issued on Thursday. He wants to take on a new professional challenge in the Middle East.

Sibbern joined SIX in early 2024 from Nasdaq, where he was President European Markets. He has more than two decades of experience in capital markets, having worked for OMX Exchanges and as CEO of E*TRADE Bank Denmark in addition to Nasdaq.

"Assertive and highly motivated"

At SIX, the Dane is currently still responsible for the SIX Swiss Exchange, the Spanish stock exchange BME and the digital exchange SDX as "Global Head Exchanges". Sibbern only announced the takeover of another exchange in the UK in mid-November. The takeover of Aquis Exchange in London is intended to expand the exchange business and make SIX more competitive with a pan-European offering.

In an interview with the news agency AWP last week, Sibbern expressed his satisfaction with his first ten months at SIX. "I am very proud of the first semester," he said. "With Galderma in Switzerland and Puig in Spain, we had the two largest IPOs in the world." He was also quite confident that the low trading volumes on the European stock exchanges as a whole could recover in the coming year.

"I am delighted that in Bjørn Sibbern we have been able to recruit a proven and well-connected capital market expert from our ranks as our new CEO," said Thomas Wellauer, Chairman of the Board of Directors, in the press release issued on Thursday. Since joining SIX, he has come to know him "as an assertive, highly motivated and proactive leader".

After the biggest Group reorganization

Under outgoing SIX CEO Jos Dijsselhof, the Swiss financial infrastructure service provider underwent the biggest reorganization in its history. Several business areas were reorganized in 2018, for example the Swiss Stock Exchange was merged with the settlement and custody of securities. Innovations and new products came to the fore, and Dijsselhof pushed for SIX to take on more services for the banks.

In addition, SIX sold its very high-revenue card business to the French company Worldline in 2018. Dijsselhof's term of office also saw acquisitions across all areas, the most drastic of which was the purchase of the Spanish stock exchange BME in 2020.

Dijsselhof will remain until the end of February 2025 to ensure a smooth handover, SIX added. There has been an internal and external search for a successor, and the whole process has been underway for a long time, a SIX spokesperson said on Thursday at the request of AWP. Following the change at the top, the SIX exchanges will be managed on an interim basis by Tomas Kindler, Head Operating Office Exchanges at SIX, until a successor is found.

SIX was formed in 2008 from the Swiss stock exchange SWX and the companies Telekurs (financial information, payment transactions) and SIS (settlement, custody). It is owned by around 120 financial institutions, which are also its customers.

SDA