By Robert Hunter

Lieng-Seng Wee and Judy Lee were quite happy in their senior positions at Capital Market Risk Advisors, the earnestly highbrow New York-based risk management consultancy. That is, until an unusually well-capitalized upstart called The Capital Markets Company offered them the chance to set up their own risk management shop under Capco's huge consulting tent.

Wee and Lee, who had been on the front lines of Bankers Trust's pioneering risk management efforts in the 1980s, knew a good offer when they saw one.

Capco, formed in August 1998, styles itself as the first truly global, IT-based capital market consultancy, helping financial institutions use technology to manage their risks and improve efficiency. Wee, one of Capco's 27 partners, says the company takes a soup-to-nuts approach to financial consulting.

The firm has been nothing if not aggressive. In just over a year, it managed to accumulate $75 million in investment capital, and has been staffing up at a breakneck pace. Capco now has offices in New York, San Francisco, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Antwerp and Brussels, and plans to open offices in Singapore and Tokyo this year. It has hired about 500 people already, and plans to grow to 1,500 by year's end.

Capco has also gone to great lengths to jack up its hipness quotient. In 1998, it published Capital, the first—and to date only—lifestyle magazine for and about people who work in the capital markets. The glitzy issue, a curious amalgam of GQ, Elle and Forbes, featured articles such as "Essential Shopping for Urbane Survival,” "Seven Tips for a Fitter Career,” "Five Select Takes on the Midday Lunch,” and an "Employment Nirvana Test,” sprinkled around thinly veiled Capco advertising copy geared to potential investors and employees. "Capital was an attempt to be creative in presenting our story,” says Wee. "The feedback has been so positive that we're working on another issue.”

Anyone interested in checking out the premiere issue of Capital can visit Capco's web site at www.capco.com. (Our suggestions for the second issue: "Impress Your Clients With Rock-Hard Abs,” "Ten Wines That Can Close a Transaction” and "Eight Ways To Spruce Up Your Desk.”)

Meanwhile, Capco's risk management group continues to recruit aggressively. "We're trying to increase our risk specialist staff by another 30 people by the end of the year,” says Wee. "We're looking for people with very strong risk management capabilities.”

Last June, Kenny Lin dropped his business card into a plastic bowl at Derivatives Strategy's "Win a Beetle” drawing at the SIA Risk Management Pavillion, before moving on in search of styrofoam frisbees. A few days later, Lin, a systems engineer at ABN Amro, got an unexpected call: He had won a $17,000 Volkswagen Beetle. Lin has already put 2,500 miles on the car driving around scenic central New Jersey. But after a few more months getting comfortable driving stick, he plans to make a late-summer road trip to the Burning Man festival in the Black Rock Desert, north of Reno, Nev.—an event, he says, for "Silicon Valley geek types.” The new car is off-limits to his family, which now has his Toyota.

• Bear Stearns has hired Charles Allard as managing director for marketing structured equity derivatives products in its London office. He had been head of structured products at CFC Securities.
• Leslie Hosking, former chief executive at the Sydney Futures Exchange, has been named chief executive of the Australian Centre for Global Finance.
• FAME Information Services has appointed Dale Richards executive vice president of the firm's financial markets division. Richards, the founder and CEO of Benton Associates, joined FAME in 1998 when the firm acquired his company.
• Katherine Jansen has been named director of global sales at Meridien Research. She had been the industry director for financial services strategy in the financial services division of Oracle Corp.
• IXnet Inc. and IPC Information Systems jointly named Richard Farrell managing director.
• Ian Scott has joined the London Clearing House as managing director for finance. He formerly served as treasurer at Fisons, Jaguar and Guinness.
• The Securities Industry Association has announced a number of appointments. James Brinkley, president and COO of Legg Mason Wood Walker, was elected chairman; Mark Sutton, president of the private client group at PaineWebber, was voted chairman-elect; Daniel Case III, chairman and CEO of Hambrecht and Quist, and Allen Morgan, chairman and CEO of Morgan Keegan, were named vice chairman; and Robert Druskin, vice chairman and chief administrative officer of Salomon Smith Barney, will serve as treasurer. Marc Lackritz will continue as president.
• NetRisk has announced a few appointments. Christopher Lewis, who worked in the risk management and regulatory practice of Ernst & Young, has been named managing director responsible for its insurance advisory services group. Marta Johnson, former head of the operational risk RAROC group at Bankers Trust, has been named managing director. Luis Sanchez, whose background involves modeling operational risks, has been named vice president.
• Nick Haining has been appointed business development manager for Europe at NumeriX. He had been assistant director of the structured derivative product sales division of Bankgesellschaft Berlin.
• The Chicago Mercantile Exchange has named James McNulty president and CEO. He had been a managing director at Warburg Dillon Read and cohead of the firm's corporate analysis and structuring team in its corporate finance division.
• Andrew Kasapis, former head of credit derivatives at Bridport Investor Services, has joined CreditTrade as a broker/marketer.
• Commerzbank has named Nikolaus Giesbert, former head of fixed-income trading at HSBC Bank, as head of fixed-income cash and derivatives trading in London.
• SAVA Risk Management Corp. announced a number of changes. John Wengler has been promoted to president. Dragana Pilipovic, the firm's founder, has been named CEO.