Standard & Poor’s today announced the appointment of Steve Rive to vice president, Standard & Poor’s Index Services Canada and global practice leader for exchange-listed products.

Based in Toronto, Rive will head the index business in Canada including managing the relationship with S&P’s local exchange partner, the Toronto Stock Exchange.

In addition, Rive takes on global responsibility for overseeing and expanding S&P’s development of exchange-listed products based on S&P indices.

Rive joins Standard & Poor’s from Barclays Global Investors in Canada where, as general manager, he oversaw the firm’s public funds business, including the creation of the iUnits family of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and the Barclays Funds line of closed-end, exchange-traded, structured products. Among his other product innovations in this role were the world’s first fixed income ETFs and first synthetic ETFs.

Prior to that Rive spent more than 10 years working in stock exchanges in Canada and the Far East in areas of product and market development.

“With extensive international experience in index-based investing, market and fund regulation, index product promotion and support, and trading, clearing and risk management, Steve brings the best combination of skills and experience to effectively lead our Canadian index endeavours as well as our global practice for listed products,” said Robert Shakotko, managing director, Standard & Poor’s Index Services, in a news release.

Rive holds a Masters degree in Economics from the University of Toronto and a B.A. with Honors in Economics from the University of British Columbia. He also holds a Canadian Securities Institute Certificate and a Registered Representative Certificate.