By Trevor Hunnicutt

NEW YORK, April 3 (Reuters) - Canaccord Genuity Group Inc has hired Joseph LaGrasta to spearhead a new exchange-traded funds sales and trading push in the United States, according to a memo seen by Reuters.

LaGrasta, who started on Monday, is a longtime veteran of the ETF business. Most recently, he was a director, focused on ETF sales, at BNP Paribas SA, where he worked for three years.

"I am very pleased to announce the formation of a U.S.-based ETF team underneath our Alternative Trading umbrella," Mark Whaling, global head of sales and trading at Canaccord Genuity, said in the memo.

"As we all know," he said, ETFs "are an ever increasing amount of the daily trading volume, so it's exciting to be entering the space with a proven producer and expert."

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Leslie Adler)