Lou Eccleston has joined Pivot Solutions as chairman and chief executive officer. Eccleston will be working to further Pivot Solutions’ IMtrader buy-side network, which brings together instant messaging, information management, research and trading technology for institutional investors.

Eccleston is well known in the industry, having held senior management positions at Bloomberg and Thomson Financial over the years.

Most recently, he was president of global sales, marketing and services at Thomson, but left last year after a corporate restructuring. Prior to that, he was president of Thomson’s banking and brokerage division, heading up the development and launch of Thomson ONE.

Eccleston also spent 14 years as a managing director at Bloomberg, working on its desktop and trading systems as well as the electronic brokerage business.

According to Pivot Solutions, its IMtrader network serves more than 350 buy-side firms with more than 2,000 members, trading more than three and a half billion shares.