Duncan Niederauer appointed CEO NYSE Euronext as John Thain becomes chairman and CEO, Merrill Lynch

The NYSE Euronext (NYX) board of directors has appointed Duncan L. Niederauer, 48, to be chief executive officer, effective 1 December 2007 to fill the position vacated by John A. Thain, 52, who has accepted the role of chairman and chief executive officer at Merrill Lynch.

Thain led the successful transformation of the New York Stock Exchange into a customer-oriented, publicly traded, and diversified global financial marketplace with the mergers with Archipelago Holdings and Euronext N.V.

As per the NYSE Group-Euronext merger agreement, the appointment of Niederauer is subject to the non-objection of the European College of Regulators. Following confirmation, Niederauer will become a member of the NYSE Euronext board of directors.  

Niederauer, 48, earned an MBA from Emory University and a BA from Colgate University , where he currently serves on the Board of Trustees. He joined NYSE Euronext as president and co-chief operating officer of NYSE Euronext on 9 April 2007. He is a member of the NYSE Euronext management committee with responsibility for US cash equities operation including institutional and member firm client group sales and client services for both NYSE and NYSE Arca.

He was managing director and co-head of the equities division execution services franchise, Goldman, Sachs & Co, which he joined in 1985. In 2000 Niederauer relocated to the headquarters of Spear, Leeds & Kellogg to manage the firms'' global clearing and execution business.

Niederauer has served on the board of managers of Archipelago Holdings, LLC and thereafter served as an observer to Archipelago''s board of managers in a non-voting capacity until their conversion to a Delaware corporation in August, 2004.

John A Thain, an MBA from Harvard University in 1979 and a BS degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977, became CEO and a director of NYSE Euronext following the merger between the NYSE Group and Euronext N.V. Mr. Thain had been Chief Executive Officer and Director of NYSE Group, Inc., upon the March 8, 2006 merger with Archipelago Holdings and the New York Stock Exchange. He joined the NYSE on January 15, 2004 , serving as Chief Executive Officer and a Director.

Prior to joining the NYSE, Thain served as president and chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. since July 2003 and was previously president and co-chief operating officer from May 1999 through June 2003; he had been a director since 1998.

Thain is a member of The MIT Corporation, the Dean''s Advisory Council - MIT/Sloan School of Management, INSEAD - US National Advisory Board, the James Madison Council of the Library of Congress and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York ''s International Capital Markets Advisory Committee. He is also a member of the Board of Managers of The New York Botanical Garden, a member of the Business Roundtable, a member of the Board of Directors of the French-American Foundation and a governor of the New York-Presbyterian Foundation, Inc., a trustee of New York-Presbyterian Hospital and a General Trustee of Howard University.