Several major index groups have joined forces to create the Index Industry Association and hired former CME Group executive Rick Redding as its executive director.
Mr. Redding, who was a managing director of products and services for CME Group, will be based in New York but will represent the group in Washington, Brussels and London on policy matters related to indexes, exchange-traded funds and other issues.
Officials with Nasdaq OMX Group Inc., FTSE and MSCI Inc. were instrumental in creating the new association, John L. Jacobs, a founding board member of the association and executive vice president of global information services indexes and data for Nasdaq OMX in Rockville, Md., said in an interview.
“The idea was to represent indexes, because there was no real trade body that did that. You have to be able to effectively tell your message.”
One of the first items on the group's agenda “is making sure people understand what indexing is,” Mr. Jacobs said.
