Schwab Euro senior VP quits for NTL

Charles Schwab Europe’s senior vice-president and head of commercial development Russ Shaw is leaving the company to join NTL in a senior management role.

Shaw is understood to have taken voluntary redundancy as a result of cost cutting across Charles Schwab’s divisions, which has resulted in about 160 redundancies since April.

As head of commercial development, Shaw has responsibility for overseeing the sales and marketing departments in London, which are responsible for developing the brand across Europe. Before joining Schwab he was vice-president of marketing at American Express.

As Marketing Week went to press Shaw’s specific duties at NTL had not been disclosed but Mike Hounsell, NTL’s group marketing director, will not be affected.

Charles Schwab is the leading online broker in the US and has 200,000 customers in Europe, most of them in the UK. However, the collapse in the value of technology stocks last year saw the company’s trading volumes slashed in half.

Senior staff are also understood to be increasingly frustrated by the US office making decisions about the European business and undermining their authority.

The UK job cuts come on top of 3,000 job losses in the US.

Charles Schwab Europe denies Shaw has taken redundancy.