After nearly seven years at TowerGroup, Gavin Little-Gill has left to join order management system vendor Linedata Services as SVP in charge of product management and strategy for front-office products. He began his new role in early June and reports to Annie Morris, Linedata's COO for North America.

Little-Gill, a former research director in TowerGroup's securities and investments practice, says he joined the OMS vendor because it was "an unbelievable opportunity." He adds, "The trading landscape is changing, and after covering the order management space for the last five years, I think Linedata is in a unique position to capitalize on these changes."

Over the next six months, Little-Gill says, he plans to "get his arms around the next release of product -- LongViewLive -- and put together a three-year strategic product plan." Linedata says LongViewLive features a new front-end trading interface that includes a single view of all the controls necessary to navigate the tools on the buy-side trader's workstation.

Little-Gill also will be building his staff. Currently, he has five direct reports and additional indirect reports. He says he plans to hire at least two VP-level executives -- one to handle products in Europe and Asia, and the other to focus on equities products.

As for the decision to leave TowerGroup, Little-Gill says, "TowerGroup has been incredibly good for me and good to me." Peter Delano, senior analyst, TowerGroup, has been promoted to research area director.