Chris Concannon is leaving Nasdaq OMX Group to join Virtu Financial LLC, a newly formed proprietary trading firm as a partner, the exchange announced today. Concanncon informed the company that he intends to step down from his role as EVP, Transaction Services U.S. effective April 30.

Virtu Financial LLC is a high frequency algorithmic trading company that employs advanced proprietary technologies to trade on electronically accessible financial exchanges and marketplaces. Vincent Viola, former Chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange, and Graham Free are founded Virtu. According to the site, Viola is a pioneer in the field of electronic trading and Free has extensive experience in algorithmic trading.

Concannon joined Nasdaq OMX from Instinet Clearing Services in 2003. But he originally came from Island, which had the fastest ECN, where he was in a general counsel type of role and was involved with strategy and then business development, recalls Sang Lee, managing partner at Aite Group in an interview with Advanced Trading. (Instinet acquired Island ECN.) Concannon was deeply involved with major market structure issues and other innovations and had a visible role at the exchange, said Lee in emailed comments.

"His biggest achievement was getting Nasdaq back on its footing and providing the wherewithal to compete effectively against other electronic trading competitors and be able to take certain market share in the NYSE-listed stocks," said Lee in the interview with Advanced Trading this morning. Prior to the wave of acquisitions that Nasdaq carried out, Nasdaq was not doing so well, says Lee. It had about 20 percent market share in its own stocks after the SuperMontage platform didn't work so well, recalls Lee. "They went around and bought up the ECNs to gain market share."

During his six-year tenure at Nasdaq OMX, Concannon has overseen and integrated numerous acquisitions, including BRUT, Instinet, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange and the Boston Stock Exchange. Concannon also led the initiative to grow market share in the trading of NYSE-listed securities, increasing the Nasdaq's share more than fifteen fold since 2005, according to the release. Additionally, he was overseen the launch of two new markets, Nasdaq OMX Europe and The Nasdaq Options Market.

In joining a proprietary trading firm, "Concannon is following in the footsteps of other ex-Island staff in the proprietary trading market and it appears that Chris is finally taking that route," said Lee in the interview.

Lee says Nasdaq should be fine after Concannon's departure. "The transaction infrastructure is in place and still retains many talented folks like Brian Hyndman (formerly of BRUT) who has over a decade of experience in the competitive electronic trading space," said the analyst.