Mr. Byrne is a managing partner of BFHS Trading, LP, a group trading and making markets on US Treasuries options on the Chicago Board of Trade. Before co-founding BFHS in May 2006, Mr. Byrne worked at Chicago Trading Company, LLC as a senior trader. He also held management positions there and had a role in providing input to the software development group.
Board of Advisors
Conor Byrne
Jay Fisher
Mr. Fisher is the Director of Corporate Relations at the Illinois Institute of Technology and was before that the Director of the Knapp Entrepreneurship Center. Before joining IIT in 2000, Mr. Fisher worked in the chemical businesses of Amoco and BP Amoco for thirty-one years. He held management positions in research, business development, logistics, customer service, strategic planning, and manufacturing.
Michael Gorham
Mr. Gorham is Industry Professor and Director of the Center for Financial Markets at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Mr. Gorham serves on the boards of two exchanges – the CBOE Futures Exchange in Chicago and the National Commodities and Derivatives Exchange in Mumbai, India. In addition, he sits on various committees of the CME, NFA, FIA and GARP, the Global Association of Risk Professionals. Before IIT, Mr. Gorham spent four years as an economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and 18 years in product development and marketing at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
Joel Krauss
Mr. Krauss has been an advisor to executives since 1974. He specializes in teaming with top executives to create new go-to-market strategies and successfully executing those strategies to deliver measurable, sustainable outcomes. Mr. Krauss has served executives in financial services, retailing, computers and electronics, transportation, health care, and government, including: Accenture, Allstate Insurance, American Express, AT&T, Baxter Healthcare, Bell Canada, Deere & Company, Dow Jones, Fiji Sugar Company, Frito-Lay, Inc., Fidelity Investments, Lucent Technologies, Merloni, Microsoft, Profit Recovery Group, Qwest Communications, Xerox, Wagner Electric, and Zebra Technologies. Mr. Krauss co-founded Market Strategy Group, LLC in 2003. In 1985 he co-founded and became managing partner of OmniTech Consulting Group, which he grew from two professionals and no clients to 85 personnel serving numerous Fortune 100 organizations. Mr. Krauss has an MBA from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.
Michael Persico
Mr. Persico is the founder and Chairman of SMG Holdings, LLC- a financial services conglomerate. He is a veteran of the financial and professional services fields. SMG Holdings, LLC is the parent of three firms dedicated to supporting the investment and trading industry - AlgoTrade, LLC, Orion Recruiting, Inc., and The Sidus Group, LLC. The Sidus Group is a capital consulting and funding firm. AlgoTrade creates custom software solutions for the electronic trading community and Orion Recruiting is a staffing and recruiting firm. Prior to SMG, he was a part owner and Partner in Ambiron, LLC, an IT security technology firm that focused on penetration tests, network audits and compliance for the financial and credit card industries. Ambiron merged with Trustwave in 2004. Mr.Persico's first firm, Tekom, Inc. was an innovator and trailblazer in the world of electronic trading. Formed in 1997 to service the German exchange Eurex, it grew to be the leading provider of information technology for the financial industry and developed many of the technology standards used for screen-based trading today. Tekom merged with Ambiron in 2004.
Patrick Kenny
Mr. Kenny has over 30 years of experience in the Financial Futures arena. For the last ten years, Mr. Kenny worked as Managing Director of Americas of Patsystems. Mr. Kenny’s career began with Geldermann, Inc. in 1980 as a Floor Manager in International Sales. He held VP positions in Institutional Sales at Harris Bank, ABN Amro, and Prudential. In 2000, Mr. Kenny left the floor to pursue the electronic side of the industry and joined Patsystems as Managing Director of the Americas. He had a significant role in growing their Americas business to become 40% of the company’s total revenue. Mr. Kenny has been a member of the CME Group since 1983.