Special Report: Global Financial Crisis

    LONDON, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- The Board of the London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) Friday appointed Xavier Rolet, the former French head of Lehman Brothers as its next chief executive.

    Xavier, 49, brings with him 25 years of experience in international markets gained at a number of major financial institutions. He will join the Board of the Group on March 16, 2009 and will take over from Clara Furse as chief executive on 20 May 2009.

    Commenting on the appointment, Chris Gibson-Smith, chairman of the LSE, said Xavier was uniquely well placed to take the Group forward in the next phase of its development with his deep knowledge of the LSE's customers and understanding of the exchange business, plus his strategic mindset.

    Between 2000 and 2008, Xavier was a senior executive at Lehman Brothers (Europe), where he was instrumental in developing its business into Europe's leading agency broker and, most recently, CEO of Lehman in France.

    Lehman acted as the exchange's corporate broker and was the largest provider of trading orders to the exchange before the investment bank's collapse.

    Prior to Lehman Brothers, Xavier held senior equity trading positions at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, Credit Suisse First Boston and Goldman Sachs.

    In her eight years at the helm, Furse battled successive hostile takeover bids. She brought the Exchange to the public markets, transformed the scale of the business and its international reputation, and most recently led the merger with Borsa Italiana.

    But the LSE is now facing the most serious challenge in decades, amid the sharp decline in its stock value and competition from emerging equity trading platforms.