About EDX

Jamil Nazarali

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

Jamil Nazarali is CEO of EDX Markets, a new market launched by a consortium of industry leaders to enable safer, faster and more efficient trading of digital assets through trusted intermediaries. Prior to assuming this role, Jamil served in a number of roles at Citadel Securities, including as Global Head of Business Development and Head of Citadel Execution Services. Previously, Jamil was Global Head of Electronic Trading at Knight Capital Group, and earlier worked as a management consultant at both Ernst & Young and Bain & Company. Jamil has served on a number of industry and board positions including as Chairman of the Board of Members Exchange (MEMX), a member of the SEC’s Equity Market Structure Advisory Committee and a member of BATS Holdings Board. Jamil received an MBA with high honors from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree from University of Western Ontario.

David Forman

GENERAL COUNSEL

David came to EDX Markets from Fidelity Investments, where he was the general counsel and Chief Legal Officer for Fidelity Investments’ retail broker-dealer since 2008, and the general counsel for Fidelity’s institutional cryptocurrency custodian, Fidelity Digital Asset Services. Before joining Fidelity in 2000, David was a securities litigator partner at Hutchins, Wheeler & Dittmar in Boston, and an associate at Choate Hall & Stewart in Boston and Willkie, Farr & Gallagher in New York.

As a nationally recognized expert on securities regulation and cryptocurrency regulation, David was invited to speak at both the first SEC FinTech conference and the first US Congressional Roundtable on cryptocurrency regulation. He has been a frequent speaker at FINRA conferences on both securities and digital asset regulation, as well as at securities industry conferences including SIFMA and the ICI, and US and international cryptocurrency conferences, including Consensus.

Jeanine Hightower - Sellito

Chief Commercial and Strategy Officer

Jeanine Hightower-Sellitto is the Chief Strategy Officer of EDX Markets. In this role she is responsible for launch and growth of the EDX digital asset exchange. Prior to EDX Jeanine was the CEO of Atomyze LLC. Atomyze was a global fintech company that developed a tokenization platform and marketplace to digitize and modernize the sourcing, investing, and trading of commodities. Jeanine served as the Managing Director of Operations at Gemini Trust Company, LLC, a chartered NY State Trust Company that operates a digital asset exchange and offers custodian services, from 2018-2020. From 2004-2017, Jeanine held several leadership roles, including Chief Operating Officer, at the International Securities Exchange (ISE), a NASDAQ subsidiary that operates three securities exchanges.

Jeanine started her career in 1998 as a Financial Analyst in the Technology Investment Banking group of Wachovia Securities. Currently, Jeanine serves on the Board of Digital Prime Technologies, which offers a full suite of turnkey prime services for traditional firms entering the digital asset space.

She is a graduate of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with degrees in Economics and Biology.

Tony Acuña - Rohter

CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER

Tony Acuña-Rohter is the Chief Technology Officer of EDX Markets, responsible for the implementation and operations of all technology and information security. Prior to joining EDX Markets, Tony was the CTO of ErisX where he led the entire technology division consisting of Software Engineering, Infrastructure and Operations, Information Security, and Business Analysis from an early-stage startup through to acquisition by Cboe Global Markets. Prior to that, Tony was Director of Software Engineering at CME Group where he led a team in the Trade Execution department responsible for building features related to trade matching, market data, and order entry. Tony’s experience is broad, covering responsibilities in technology leadership and management, software engineering, software architecture, product design, information security, regulatory and compliance, and low latency highly available trading systems. Tony has more than 20 patents and graduated Cum Laude with a degree in Computer Science from Illinois Institute of Technology.

Nataliya Manina

Chief Compliance Officer

Nataliya Manina is the Chief Compliance Officer of EDX Markets. Prior to assuming this role, Nataliya was the Chief Compliance Officer at Cboe Digital, ErisX, and G.H. Financials, where she led Compliance and Anti Money Laundering Program for highly regulated entities. While at ErisX, Nataliya was also the Chief Regulatory Officer and Senior Legal Counsel, managing trade surveillance team and working on federal and state licensing for the firm. Nataliya also worked as compliance examiner at CME Group, National Futures Association, and held several legal roles including a derivatives and trading attorney at UBS, and Managing Director, Legal and Compliance, at Drawbridge Lending. Nataliya has extensive experience working with regulators, including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the NY Department of Financial Services. Nataliya is a licensed attorney in New York, with a Master of Laws from Northwestern University School of Law. Nataliya is also a CPA and received an MBA in finance from Depaul’s Kellstadt Graduate School of Business.

Peng Zhao

chairman of the board

Peng Zhao is Chief Executive Officer of Citadel Securities, a pre- eminent global market maker active in all major asset classes.

One of the early architects of Citadel Securities, Peng joined the firm directly out of graduate school as a Senior Quantitative Researcher.

Since becoming CEO in 2017, he has led the company through a period of continued growth and sustained expansion. Today, Citadel Securities employs over 1,000 professionals worldwide and is a lead provider of liquidity on over 120 venues across more than 35 countries. Through its promotion of marketplace competition, resilience and transparency, the company has emerged as a transformative force in the financial services industry.

Peng earned his PhD in Statistics from the University of California at Berkeley, where he was a Berkeley Fellow, and holds a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics from Peking University. He serves on the Board of Trustees for the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

Konstantine Buhler

Board Director

Konstantine Buhler is a Partner at Sequoia Capital. He works with portfolio companies including  EDX, Citadel Securities, CaptivateIQ, Ethos, Kumo AI, and Verkada. Prior to joining Sequoia in 2019, Konstantine was at Meritech Capital, where he partnered with businesses including DataRobot, Newfront Insurance, and Yubico. He is an angel investor / advisor to companies including OpenSea and Viz.ai. Konstantine earned his BS, MS, and MBA from Stanford University and is an expert in Artificial Intelligence. He has a passion for cloud software and AI.

Douglas Cifu

Board Director

Douglas A. Cifu has been Chief Executive Officer and a member of the board of directors of Virtu Financial, Inc. since November 2013 having previously co-founded the firm in 2008. Virtu Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ: VIRTU) is a technologically-enabled financial services firm that has offices in New York, Austin, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Dublin, London, Paris, Hong Kong, Sydney, Singapore and Toronto. At Virtu, Mr. Cifu has led and managed all key strategic and operational decisions, including its initial public offering that closed in April 2015, the $1.4 billion acquisition of KCG Holdings in 2017, the $1.0 billion acquisition of ITG in March 2019 and various public and private financings. Mr. Cifu frequently speaks on global market structure issues and concerns with global regulators and at industry conferences and in private settings.

Prior to co-founding Virtu, Mr. Cifu was a partner at the international law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, where he practiced corporate law from 1990 to 2008, served on the firm’s Management Committee and was Deputy Chairman of the Corporate Department. At Paul Weiss, Mr. Cifu specialized in complex merger and acquisition transactions for private equity sponsors and other Fortune 500 companies.

He is recognized in Chambers USA and Legal 500 as a leading mergers and acquisitions lawyer for buyouts and private equity transactions. In 2006, Private Equity International listed him among the 30 most influential lawyers currently working in global private equity, citing his expertise in technology- driven sectors. He has been recognized by Crain’s New York Business in its “Technology 100,” a listing of the top 100 people working in technology in the New York area. In 2020, he was recognized as the #3 top FinTech CEO by The Financial Technology Report.

Mr. Cifu is a member of the Board of Directors of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Board of Visitors of Columbia College at Columbia University. Mr. Cifu is also Partner, Vice Chairman and Alternate Governor of the Florida Panthers, an NHL hockey franchise.

Mr. Cifu completed his J.D. at Columbia Law School in 1990 and received his B.A. from Columbia University in 1987, from which he graduated magna cum laude and elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Chris DeWinter

Board Director

Chris DeWinter is a Managing Director of Corporate Development at Fidelity Investments. Chris is responsible for sourcing, closing, and overseeing investments and developing relationships with key financial markets infrastructure and emerging financial technology companies across Fidelity’s businesses.

Prior to joining Fidelity, Chris headed Nomura’s Market Structure and Strategic Investments business at Nomura beginning in 2010. Prior to that, Chris led Principal Strategic Investments and was a member of the Principal Finance business at RBS and its RBS Greenwich Capital division. Chris also Co-Founded Cypress Associates, an investment banking boutique. Prior to that, he was Head of Financial Technology investment banking at CIBC. Chris holds A.B. and M.B.A. degrees from Cornell University.

Chris has served or currently serves in various capacities on company boards, including the following: Symphony, OTCDerivnet, Markit, Tradeweb, Traiana, Chi-X, Pico, AIM2 Ltd., Komainu Digital., CMG, and Kezar Markets.

Jeff Starr

Board Director

Jeff Starr is Managing Director and head of Operational Services. He is responsible for overseeing the organization, which handles all operational transactions for clients doing business with Charles Schwab & Co., Inc., and TD Ameritrade.

Before taking his current role, his area of focus included equity, options and fixed income capital markets trading, trading operations, margin services, security and market data platforms, and risk management. He also managed the Operations Control team.

Prior to joining Schwab in 2010, Jeff served as Vice President of Investment Banking in the Financial Institutions Group at Credit Suisse, conducting mergers and acquisitions and capital raising for banks and insurance companies. Prior to joining Credit Suisse, Jeff served in the Financial Institutions Groups at both HSBC Securities and Lehman Brothers.

Jeff earned his Bachelor of Commerce degree from McGill University in Montreal, Canada and his Master of Business Administration from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He is a CFA charter holder and has his Series 7, 24, and 27 licenses.

Paul Veradittakit

Board Director

Paul is a Managing Partner at Pantera Capital and focuses on both the venture capital and hedge funds. Pantera Capital is one of the earliest and largest institutional investor in digital currencies and blockchain technologies.

Paul leads and oversees the investment team on a day-to-day basis and actively engages with our portfolio companies as a board member (e.g., Alchemy, Pintu, Valr) and advisor. He and his team have executed over 200 blockchain investments and facilitated some of the largest acquisitions in the space. Paul’s prior experience includes working as an associate at Strive Capital, where he focused on investments in the mobile space. He also performed partnerships and growth for Urban Spoils, a daily-deal aggregation startup, and worked with LECG and Hatch Consulting.

Paul graduated from the University of California, Berkeley.

Joe Barakat

charles schwab

Joe Barakat is Managing Director of Strategy, Analytics, & Client Experience for Trading Services at Charles Schwab. The Trading Services team is focused on delivering a comprehensive experience for retail traders, including developing market-leading trading platforms and tools, trading products including equities, options, futures, and forex, on-demand and live education, and segment-aligned client service and relationship management. As Managing Director Barakat is responsible for strategic planning, client experience, and reporting and analytics for the trading and education business for both Schwab and TD Ameritrade. 

Prior to Schwab, Barakat held several leadership roles at TD Ameritrade, most recently as Managing Director in the Trading & Education business. Before joining TD Ameritrade, he was a management consultant with Accenture’s capital markets group where he worked primarily with wealth management firms and global banks to deliver key strategic initiatives, including merger integration programs and operating model redesigns. Earlier in his career, Barakat was a product manager for voting solutions at Institutional Shareholder Services and worked in capital markets intelligence for Thomson Financial.

Barakat earned a B.A. from Washington & Lee University and an M.B.A. from the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. He holds FINRA Series 7 and 24 securities registrations.

Alex Bussandri

citadel securities

Alex Bussandri is the Global Head of Strategy for Citadel Securities, a leading market maker and the next generation capital markets firm. Prior to this, he was a Director in Bain Capital's Special Situations fund, based in London. Mr. Bussandri was previously a Partner at McKinsey & Company in the firm's Private Equity and Financial Services practices. He began his career as an FX and rates trader. Mr. Bussandri holds an MBA with Distinction from INSEAD, and a bachelor's degree from McGill University.

Tom Gallagher

Miami International Holdings

Thomas P. Gallagher is one of Miami International Holdings (MIH) principal founders and has served as the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors of MIH and the MIAX Exchanges since the Company’s inception in 2007. He was a founding partner of the law firm Gallagher, Briody & Butler, a corporate and securities law firm located in Princeton, New Jersey, and was associated with the firm until joining the Company full time in December 2012.

Mr. Gallagher has been a director of Minneapolis Grain Exchange (MGEX) since October 2019, becoming Chairman of the MGEX Board of Directors in June 2021. Mr. Gallagher has also been a member of the Bermuda Stock Exchange (BSX) Council since July 2019, becoming Chairman of the BSX Council in February 2020. Mr. Gallagher is also a director of MIH’s other subsidiaries MIAX Technologies since May 2010, MIAX Products since January 2019, MIAX Global since June 2015, M 402 since July 2020 and MIAX Futures, LLC since February 2008, Dorman Trading since October 2022, as well as Chief Executive Officer of Dorman Trading since October 2022. From 2005 to 2014, Mr. Gallagher served on the Board of Trustees of The Hun School of Princeton and is currently a Trustee Emeritus.

Joseph Molluso

VIRTU

Joseph A. Molluso is the co-President of Virtu Financial, a publicly traded global financial institution. Prior to becoming co-President in June 2020, he was the Chief Financial Officer for Virtu beginning in November 2013. Prior to joining Virtu, Mr. Molluso spent nearly twenty years in the financial services industry, most recently as Managing Director, Investment Banking at J.P. Morgan from 2006 to 2013, where he provided strategic advice to financial institutions in all aspects of corporate finance including capital raising and mergers and acquisitions.

Trained originally in Accounting and Finance, Mr. Molluso began his career as a corporate tax professional, handling complex tax structuring, compliance and audit issues for Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. After earning his MBA in Finance, Mr. Molluso began his career in 1997 as an investment banker at DLJ and its successor, Credit Suisse Group.

Mr. Molluso formerly served on the Board of Directors of the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation. Mr. Molluso received his M.B.A. from New York University in 1997 and his B.B.A. from Pace University in 1991.

Adam Nunes

HUDSON TRADING

Adam Nunes is business operations lead at Hudson River Trading, a multi-asset class, quantitative trading and market making firm based in New York with offices in Chicago, Austin, London, Dublin, Singapore, Mumbai, and Shanghai. At Hudson River Trading, Mr. Nunes is focused on the firm’s global risk and compliance operations.

Prior to joining Hudson River Trading in 2009, Mr. Nunes was Vice President, Transaction Services and Head of U.S. Options at NASDAQ where he oversaw the acquisition and integration of NASDAQ PHLX and was responsible for the NASDAQ Options Market. Prior to focusing on options, he was responsible for developing policy initiatives, new products, product enhancements and pricing for NASDAQ’s equity transaction products.
Mr. Nunes joined NASDAQ in 2000 as a Research Analyst in the Economic Research Department. Mr. Nunes began his career as a Research Associate at Economists Incorporated, an economic consulting firm based in Washington, DC. Mr. Nunes received his BBA in Finance from the George Washington University.

Michael O'Reilly

Fidelity Digital Assets

Mike O'Reilly is the President of Fidelity Digital Assets^SM, which provides digital asset products and solutions for institutional investors. In this role, Mike is responsible for the daily business operations while directing the company’s long-term vision to create full-service brokerage and asset management capabilities for digital assets of all types

Prior to his role as President, Mike was the Chief Operating Officer of Fidelity Digital AssetsSM. Before that role, Mike was senior vice president of Risk and Compliance Operations for Fidelity Pricing and Cash Management Services which comprises the middle and back office functions for the Fidelity mutual funds and other retail and institutional investment products. Mike oversaw the risk and compliance programs for the functions responsibile for NAV calculation and distribution, fund financial statements and tax return preparation, reconciliation, reporting and movement of money and securities.

Prior to that, Mike was head of Operations for Fidelity Investments Corporate Compliance Group where he was responsible for monitoring and enforcing Fidelity’s Code of Ethics and employee trading policies, and managing the registration and licensing activities for broker-dealers, investment advisers, and insurance agents.

Mike joined Fidelity as a staff accountant and held business roles within Fidelity Capital, Fidelity Retail Investor Services, Brokerage and Personal Investments before building his career in risk and compliance.

Mike received a bachelor of science in accounting and finance from the Boston College Carroll School of Management.

Joe Pleffner

GTS

Joe Pleffner currently serves as the Head of GTS Securities Wholesale Market Making (WMM) where he primarily focuses on trading, risk management, and sales.  Under his leadership and vast network of client relationships, the GTS WMM team has grown into an industry leader in a very short period of time, providing innovative products to an array of broker-dealer clients.  He is also responsible for the firm’s sales and trading efforts for digital assets.
 
Prior to GTS and before a three-year stint at Cantor Fitzgerald as the Head of Client Market Making, Mr. Pleffner worked at Knight Capital Group (KCG) for close to 20 years serving as both Head of Cash Trading strategy and MD of trading support.  In that role, he was involved in every aspect of the Cash Trading business – leading the trading staff, identifying new opportunities to grow the P&L and ensuring client retention and satisfaction.

Through his 25-year career in execution services, Mr. Pleffner has developed a seasoned perspective on market structure best-practices, client relationship management and regulatory and operational awareness. 

Mr. Pleffner graduated from Hofstra University with a bachelor’s in economics.

Rich Rosenblum

GSR

Rich is a Co-Founder and the President of GSR, and leads the group across strategic initiatives and growth. He began his career at Goldman Sachs where he spent 11 years between New York and London in commodities trading as a Managing Director and Global Head of Crude Oil and Derivatives Trading. Prior to joining GSR, he spent a few years on the buy-side, running energy trading teams at two New York-based hedge funds. Rich earned a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Columbia University.