The Board
Mark Fields
Partner, Alsop Louie Partners
Mark Fields
Partner, Alsop Louie Partners
Mark Fields is a Partner at Alsop Louie Partners. Prior to joining ALP, Mark was CEO, President, and member of the Board of Directors of Wickr, Inc., an end-to end encrypted communications platform enabling enterprises and consumers in more than 190 countries to safeguard proprietary information and sensitive communications. Prior to Wickr, Fields was the Founder and Managing Director of CME Ventures, CME Group’s corporate venture capital group. At its inception, CME Ventures focused primarily on cyber security, payments, next generation computing technologies, and curated big data technologies. Fields spent 15 years at CME Group, serving as a leader in the mergers & acquisitions, business and strategic development teams. Fields was recognized as one of Crain’s Chicago Business Tech 50 in 2015. Fields holds a BA in Economics from Rutgers University and an MBA from Pepperdine University. Fields serves as a mentor to young professionals and organizations. Currently, he serves on the Advisory Council of the Brennan School of Business at Dominican University, and the Board of Lauren’s Hope, a local social services organization.
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Jim Gray
Co-Founder, optionsXpress Holdings, Inc.
Jim Gray
Co-Founder, optionsXpress Holdings, Inc.
James Gray is the Co-founder and Chairman of optionsXpress Holdings, Inc., the online options, futures and stock brokerage that fundamentally changed how retail investors use exchange-traded derivatives for investing and strategic portfolio management. Charles Schwab acquired optionsXpress in 2011. Currently, Jim is CEO of G-Bar LP, one of the nation’s largest independent options, and futures trading firms. Jim is an investor in Ascent Technologies. Gray is active in many civic and professional organizations, serving on the boards of the Shedd Aquarium, Children’s Memorial and the Chicago Museum of Science & Industry. He is also a member of the Young Presidents Organization, the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center, the Commercial Club and the Economic Club of Chicago. Through the Avrum Gray Family Fund and the G-Bar Foundation, Gray is also a supporter of the Chicago Botanic Gardens, Chicago Symphony, Jewish United Fund, Lyric Opera House, Gene Siskel Film Center, Boys and Girls Club of Chicago, the Ravinia Festival and Cubs Charities. Gray holds a B.S. in Finance and Economics from the University of Iowa. He has following NASD registrations: Series 4, 7, 24 and 63.
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Paul Wood
Co-Founder, Madison Dearborn Partners
Paul Wood
Co-Founder, Madison Dearborn Partners
Paul Wood is a co-founder and former Managing Director of Madison Dearborn Partners. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Madison Dearborn is one of the largest and most successful private equity investment firms in the nation. From the firm’s founding in 1993 and prior to his retirement in 2006, Madison Dearborn raised and successfully invested four separate private equity funds totaling over $10 billion. From 1985 through 1992, Mr. Wood was a Vice President and partner at First Chicago Venture Capital, the private equity investment arm of First National Bank of Chicago. Mr. Wood began his business career in 1978 at Continental Illinois Venture Corporation of Chicago. He has been a board member of the Children’s Home and Aid Society of Illinois for over 25 years and currently serves on the executive committee and as Chairman of the Society’s Foundation. He also serves on the board of Trustees of the National Naval Aviation Museum Foundation and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Mr. Wood graduated with honors from the University of Illinois and received his MBA from Columbia University in New York. He resides in North Palm Beach, Florida with his wife Corinne (the former Lieutenant Governor of Illinois).
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Industry Advisory Council
David Rudis
David Rudis
David Rudis spent over 30 years at LaSalle National Bank and its predecessor bank based in Chicago where he was part of the top executive team that took LaSalle from a small, struggling bank in the early 1980s to a highly profitable, super regional market share leader that was sold to Bank of America for $21bil in 2007. Following the sale David stayed on as president of BofA Illinois and also as the executive in charge of BofA’s national debit card and checking businesses. David is currently vice-chairman of the board of the Acorn Wanger Mutual Funds as well as lead director of First Hospitality, a U.S. developer, owner and manager of hotels.
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Nirvana Farhadi
Nirvana Farhadi
Nirvana Farhadi is a thought leader and pioneer in the RegTech sector, with over 20 years of experience in financial services. She is a global RegTech influencer, author, and keynote speaker with an expertise in compliance, operations and risk. In her current role as Global Head, Financial Services RegTech, Risk & Regulatory Compliance Affairs, Nirvana is the business owner and strategic leader for the organization’s Financial Services RegTech business. As the former Head of Regulatory Reporting at KPMG, she has led the business, practice, and development for Regulatory Transaction Reporting as well as a number of other reporting requirements.
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Scott Gordon
Scott Gordon
Under Mr. Gordon’s 15-year leadership, Rosenthal Collins Group, LLC (“RCG”) was one of the nation’s leading independent futures brokerage and clearing firms. He currently is Chairman of XF, LLC where he is assisting the former RCG owners in winding down their operations. As Chairman of the Board of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) from 1998 to 2002, he guided the exchange through the development and execution of a strategic plan that transformed it from a mutual membership organization to a for-profit stock corporation, the first U.S. financial exchange to take this step. Mr. Gordon previously served as President and Chief Operating Officer of a Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi futures brokerage subsidiary.
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Strategic Advisors
Waverly Deutsch
Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship, Chicago Booth
Waverly Deutsch
Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship, Chicago Booth
Waverly Deutsch teaches Building the New Venture (a unique course on entrepreneurial execution), and is a full-time coach for the annual New Venture Challenge competition at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business since 2002. In 2015, Deutsch was honored with the Phoenix Faculty award for her contributions to the Booth student community beyond the classroom. Deutsch is an active angel investor and advisor to start ups including Stylisted, PrettyQuick (acquired by Groupon), InterApt, and SwingByte. She served on the board of directors for InContext Solutions, a leading 3D virtual store market research company from 2009 to 2011. She is an advisor to OCA Ventures, a leading technology VC in Chicago, and serves on the board of SmartBet Charities. In her year as managing director of NetFuel Ventures, an internet incubator, Deutsch helped raise seed capital and launch three technology companies before the firm merged with ARCH Development Partners. As executive vice president of marketing and strategy for internet exchange company fob.com, she increased their media visibility by 500 percent. She spent seven years with Forrester Research, helping to grow the company from a 20-person boutique market research firm to a publicly traded, global brand with a market cap of over $600 million and offices worldwide. Deutsch earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Pittsburgh in 1985. She received a master’s degree in 1989 and a PhD in theater history in 1992 from Tufts University.
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Doug Monieson
Chairman of the Board, Hyde Park Angels
Doug Monieson
Chairman of the Board, Hyde Park Angels
Douglas is Chairman of the Board of Hyde Park Angels (HPA), the largest and most active angel group in the Midwest. He has board responsibilities for two of HPA’s portfolio companies: UICO, a touch-screen manufacturing company, and Group Gift, a crowd-sourced B2B group gifting site. He also led the successful exit of Gradebeam, which was purchased by Textura in 2011. He serves on the Board of Directors of Modern Asset Group, an alternative investment management firm with an expertise in managed futures. Douglas has been involved in the financial trading community for more than twenty years. He has been an active member of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) since 1994, is a founding member of the NASDAQ100 futures pit, and worked closely with the CME Board of Directors and staff to help launch the e-mini NASDAQ contract in 2001. He has served on the CME Group’s Political Action Committee since 2007 and is currently running for election for CME’s Board of Directors. He has made regular appearances as a financial commentator on Bloomberg TV, CNBC, CNNFN, and Canada’s Report on Business TV. Douglas graduated from the University of Michigan in 1987 with a BA in Economics and received his MBA in finance from the University of Chicago in 1989.
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