Financial Industry Veterans DiFazio And Schenkman Join Mantara Board

Mantara, Inc., a provider of advanced technology solutions for securities trading, has appointed Robert K. DiFazio and Richard D. Schenkman to the company's board of directors. Seasoned industry executives, DiFazio and Schenkman have impressive track records in building and leading some of Wall Street's most successful and respected firms.

DiFazio's career spans more than 25 years evolving from the equity trading desk to top-level positions in global equities and capital markets. Most recently at National Financial Services (Fidelity Investments) DiFazio served as president of Fidelity Capital Markets, responsible for growing the institutional business. Prior to Fidelity, he served as managing director and co-head of global equities at Citigroup Salomon Smith Barney, where he was responsible for combining the equity businesses of these three players and building the resulting entity into one of Wall Street's premier equity houses. Earlier as head of equities at Smith Barney, DiFazio led the successful integration and profitability of Smith Barney and Shearson's combined equity business, and prior to that he headed the listed equities desk for Smith Barney and earlier traded listed equities for PaineWebber. DiFazio is currently involved with private equity and incubation activities and serves on both non-profit and advisory boards.

Joining Instinet in 1984, Schenkman was among a small group of industry pioneers who recognized the value of technology to transform equity trading worldwide with a platform for institutions to improve performance on their investors' behalf. A precursor to the proliferation of Electronic Communication Networks (ECN's) and Alternative Trading Systems (ATS's), Instinet was the securities industry's first electronic broker. Schenkman was instrumental in architecting Instinet's order management system, now the global template for managing order flow. After serving as Instinet's chief operating officer, Schenkman was appointed CEO and managing partner of Brut LLC, an ATS and ECN for US equities, owned by a consortium of Wall Street firms. Under Schenkman's leadership, Brut's revenue and market share tripled. In 2002, he led the team that sold Brut to SunGard Data Systems. Following Brut's acquisition, Schenkman has served in advisory roles to various industry-related technology companies, exchanges, and brokerage firms, as well as to private equity and non-profit boards.

"We are delighted to welcome two executives with such deep and extensive capital markets experience to the Board. Robert and Richard bring tremendous depth of knowledge in the markets in which we compete and their stature in the financial community will be of immense value as Mantara strives to deliver advanced trading solutions and forge important links with key distribution partners and venues," said David Gilbert, Mantara president and CEO, in a press release. "I have no doubt that their knowledge will help us navigate the increasingly complex world of trading and technology," he added.