What are these derivatives experts doing after jumping from CME to the cryptocurrency industry?
What roles are professionals who previously worked at CME and later entered the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry playing?Author: Zen, PANews
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group (CME Group) is one of the largest derivatives markets in the world, offering futures and options trading across various sectors, including commodities, interest rates, and foreign exchange. As a key player in the financial markets, CME has played an important role in facilitating the entry of the cryptocurrency market into the mainstream financial system.
Professionals who have previously worked at CME and later entered the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry have widely participated in various fields, including investment management, regulatory compliance, operations management, market development, and strategic development. They often play leadership roles in the industry and are able to apply their experience from traditional financial markets to the emerging digital asset space, promoting the popularization and innovative development of blockchain technology. According to public information, this article by PANews will provide a brief introduction to eleven key participants who have worked at CME and later entered the cryptocurrency field.
Rumi Morales worked at CME for nearly 7 years, where she was involved in designing and launching CME Ventures, the venture capital arm of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group, and led investments in blockchain companies as well as companies specializing in artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and quantum computing. During her tenure, she invested in blockchain startups including Ripple and distributed ledger startup Digital Asset Holdings. In 2018, Rumi Morales joined the Web3 accelerator Outlier Ventures; from January 2022 to January 2023, she served as the head of venture capital and growth investments at blockchain investment firm Digital Currency Group. Additionally, since 2016, Rumi has been a member of the advisory council of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, a lobbying group for the U.S. blockchain industry.
Jill Sommers has nearly 30 years of experience in the derivatives industry, having served as a regulatory affairs manager at CME for 6 years early in her career. The most prominent phase of Sommers' career was her tenure as a commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) from 2007 to 2013, where she served two consecutive terms, as well as her roles as chair of the Global Markets Advisory Committee and designated federal officer, discussing regulatory challenges in global markets. She briefly entered the cryptocurrency industry: in September 2022, FTX.US Derivatives announced Sommers' appointment to its board to help strengthen the company's regulatory efforts. Jill Sommers has been with financial services consulting firm Patomak Global Partners since 2014, currently serving as chair of the derivatives business group.
Nathan Dean is currently a senior policy analyst for Bloomberg in the U.S. and Latin America, specializing in disseminating political intelligence to executives, institutional investors, and risk managers. He has extensive experience engaging with government policymakers, regulatory leaders, and external trading partners to influence policy and regulatory outcomes. Before joining Bloomberg, Nathan Dean served as a government affairs manager at CME, collaborating with the CFTC, SEC, U.S. Treasury, and foreign regulators on rulemaking related to derivatives and exchanges. Dean frequently analyzes regulatory policies in the cryptocurrency industry and previously indicated that 2025 could be a good year for crypto policy, believing that in addition to the positive news of ETF approvals, a stablecoin framework might also be realized by the end of next year.
Danny Slutsky is an investment professional who just joined Galaxy Asset Management as a principal in July of this year. His career began at CME, where he worked for nearly 8 years, ultimately serving as the manager of CME Ventures, during which he expanded the CME Ventures portfolio from 8 companies to 35 companies. After leaving CME, Slutsky joined Digital Currency Group in May 2022, where he held positions as a late-stage venture investor assistant and strategic and operations assistant, managing over 250 portfolios. From August 2023 to July 2024, he joined digital asset trading firm BlockFills as vice president of strategy; this company completed a 37 million dollar Series A funding round in early 2022, led by CME Ventures.
Ricky Li is currently a general partner at the crypto venture fund Nomad Capital. Previously, he was a co-founder of cryptocurrency trading, consulting, and asset management firm Altonomy, and served as a research and product manager at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group and as an energy risk manager at PwC, with extensive experience in both emerging cryptocurrency markets and traditional commodity markets.
Eugene Cheung is currently the vice president at Bybit, where he established and leads a new department focused on institutional investors, responsible for identifying business opportunities, developing partnerships, and implementing marketing strategies to promote the exchange's products and services. Before joining Bybit, Eugene served as managing director and head of China at Tradeweb, where he was responsible for business strategy and development plans. Eugene has rich experience and a strong background at CME, where he held several senior positions from 2007 to 2015, leading the development of the China business, establishing a representative office in Beijing, and formulating a long-term strategy for China.
Richard Shade is currently the chief operating officer of digital asset exchange Archax, having joined the company in early 2021. Shade previously served as the head of CME's European market operations, managing all operational functions. From March 2018 to January 2019, he briefly joined blockchain financial services company UWINCorp, providing project management, business analysis, and operational expertise. After leaving this startup, Shade joined Malta-based crypto trading company Safequant as a director and board member, responsible for digital asset custody business, including client-facing sales and business development, operations, and management of third-party relationships. Additionally, Shade has been a member of the Global Blockchain Business Council since 2018, serving as an advisor in the PTDL (Post Trade Distributed Ledger Group) focused on researching and promoting distributed ledger technology.
Sandra Ro is currently the CEO of the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC), which has over 500 institutional members and 231 ambassadors across 109 jurisdictions and disciplines. In 2023, she was appointed as a member of the Global Markets Advisory Committee (GMAC) and the Digital Asset Markets Subcommittee (DAMS) of CFTC Commissioner Caroline Pham, and serves as co-chair of the subcommittee's classification and tokenization infrastructure workflow. During her tenure at CME, she led research and product development for foreign exchange and metals and established a new business unit called "Digital." Sandra and her team created the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate and Index, CME Bitcoin Futures, and post-trade, clearing, and settlement solutions.
Bobby Zagotta is currently the CEO and global chief business officer of Bitstamp USA, responsible for the business growth and management of this longest-operating cryptocurrency exchange globally. Before joining Bitstamp in July 2021, Bobby served as chief business officer at another well-known exchange, Kraken, for 3 years. From 2012 to 2017, he was a senior leadership team member at CME, successively responsible for its product and growth strategy, global expansion and sales, as well as overseeing big data and analytics, corporate strategy and innovation, planning and execution, and corporate venture capital.
Aaron Gong previously served as vice president of contracts at Binance. Before joining the exchange, he worked at CME, responsible for launching new products in the Asia-Pacific region, and had also worked at a New York hedge fund and a Dutch market-making firm. In the first two years after the launch of Binance's contract trading platform, Aaron Gong was interviewed by several media outlets, and his Twitter account @AG_Binance was continuously updated at that time. He later quietly left Binance, and his original Twitter account is no longer in use, with no further information available regarding his social media accounts and recent activities.
Miguel Vias is currently the founder and managing partner of The Markets Group, a strategic consulting firm established in August this year, specializing in token market development in the crypto capital markets, providing services such as market maker coordination, fund management, and liquidity venue development. Before starting his own business, Miguel Vias served as vice president of growth at blockchain video game platform Forte Labs from June 2021, and from 2016 to 2020, he was the market lead at Ripple Labs, responsible for the initial partner strategy for Ripple's flagship remittance product On-Demand Liquidity and managing the team to develop the market ecosystem around XRP. Prior to entering the blockchain industry, Miguel worked at CME Group for nearly 5 years, where he held the position of global head of precious metals and options.
