Mr. Thomas began his career on Wall Street in 1989 with Merrill Lynch. He spent his first 10 years there working as a U.S. International Equity Salesman, Senior Deal Manager on the Equity Syndicate Desk, and as Manager of the Convertible Sales & Marketing Desk before moving to Morgan Stanley. While at Morgan Stanley, Mr. Thomas was widely credited with creating their retail exchange-traded fund business. He served as Manager of the ETF Sales and Trading Department until his promotion in January 2002 to First Vice President, Director of Equity Capital Markets Sales. On behalf of the World Gold Council, he started World Gold Trust Services in August 2002 to create, manage, and market the first U.S. commodity-backed equity traded on an exchange. In November 2004 SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) was launched on the NYSE.