FINRA Names Feral Talib as Executive Vice President and Head of Surveillance and Market Intelligence

WASHINGTON—FINRA announced today that it has appointed Feral Talib as Executive Vice President and Head of Surveillance and Market Intelligence. He will assume the role on January 2.

In the newly created role, Talib will be responsible for leading FINRA’s surveillance program, which serves a unique and critical role in fostering the integrity of the U.S. securities markets. As the markets have evolved and grown increasingly complex, FINRA has made significant investments and collaborated with the national securities exchanges to develop robust and sophisticated surveillances that operate across markets and products. 

FINRA now actively surveils all reported activity in the equities, options and fixed income markets, using advanced technology to analyze more than 500 billion market events each day to detect a wide range of potential violations—including market manipulation, insider trading and unfair treatment of customer orders. FINRA also leverages this technology to provide key feedback to its member firms in the form of “report cards,” which are designed to promote compliance in the first instance and prevent violations. 

Talib will lead FINRA’s efforts to enhance this strong foundation of surveillance excellence, with a focus on continuous innovation. He will report to Stephanie Dumont, Executive Vice President and Head of Market Regulation and Transparency Services.

“Feral has extensive experience leading surveillance programs that will bolster our mission of protecting investors and promoting market integrity. He has a proven track record of overseeing comprehensive surveillance portfolios, while utilizing cutting-edge surveillance techniques. Feral’s surveillance expertise will help us continue to innovate and enhance the effectiveness and technological sophistication of our surveillance program. Feral will be a key addition to FINRA’s ongoing leadership in regulatory surveillance,” Dumont said.

“I am excited to be joining FINRA and to have the opportunity to lead its Surveillance and Market Intelligence unit. Robust surveillance is vital to ensuring fair markets and protecting investors, and we are at the cusp of an evolutionary leap in surveillance capabilities through the use of artificial intelligence and our ability to process unstructured data. By combining advanced surveillance and detection with FINRA's traditional investigative expertise, I look forward to continuing and building upon the excellent work FINRA is already doing in this space,” Talib said. 

Talib was previously the Global Head of Market Surveillance at BNP Paribas Group. In that role, he provided strategic leadership of the firm’s market surveillance activities across 64 countries, focusing on compliance with many of the same trading and market integrity rules that FINRA regulates.

Before that, he was the Global Head of Market Surveillance at BNP Paribas Corporate and Institutional Banking (CIB). He previously held other roles at BNP Paribas CIB, including Americas Head of the Market Integrity Domain and Americas Head of Capital Markets and Financial Security Surveillance.

Prior to BNP Paribas, Talib was a Vice President at Goldman Sachs, where he held a variety of leadership roles, including overseeing its Market Surveillance and Investigations group.

About FINRA

FINRA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to investor protection and market integrity. It regulates one critical part of the securities industry—brokerage firms doing business with the public in the U.S. FINRA, overseen by the SEC, writes rules, examines for and enforces compliance with FINRA rules and federal securities laws, registers broker-dealer personnel and offers them education and training, and informs the investing public. In addition, FINRA provides surveillance and other regulatory services for equities and options markets, as well as trade reporting and other industry utilities. FINRA also administers a dispute resolution forum for investors and brokerage firms and their registered employees. For more information, visit www.finra.org.