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LEO MELAMED
Chairman
Emeritus
CME Group, Inc.
Leo
Melamed is globally recognized as the founder of financial
futures. In 1972, as chairman of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange
(CME Group), he launched currency futures with the creation
of the International Monetary Market (IMM)—the first futures
market for financial instruments. He is currently Chairman
Emeritus of CME Group and CEO of Melamed & Associates,
Inc. Melamed has been an adviser to the U.S. Commodity Futures
Trading Commission (CFTC) and serves as special adviser on
futures markets to governments worldwide. He is also the
author of Leo
Melamed on the Markets (Wiley), The
Tenth Planet (Bonus
Books), Escape
to the Futures (Wiley),
and editor of an anthology entitled The
Merits of Flexible Exchange Rates (George
Mason University Press). His most recent book is For
Crying Out Loud, the story From Open Outcry to the Electronic Screen (Wiley).
In the years that followed, Melamed
led the CME in the introduction of a diverse number of financial
instruments, including Treasury Bills in 1976, Eurodollars
in 1981, and stock index futures in 1982.
At
the close of 1999, Melamed was named by the former editor
of the Chicago
Tribune,
among the ten most important Chicagoans in business of the
20th Century. Chicago
Magazine included
him among the century’s top 100 Chicagoans. In 2003, Pensions & Investments included
Mr. Melamed in the list of 30 individuals whose contribution
“made the most dramatic difference” in the management of
money during the last 100 years
Leo
Melamed was an immigrant child who found safety in the U.S.
during World War II. The story of his escape from Bialystok,
Poland where he was born, as he and his parents miraculously
outwitted the Gestapo and KGB, was an odyssey that took two
years. The escape spanned three continents, seven languages,
the Trans-Siberian railroad, and Japan—courtesy a life-saving
transit visa from Japanese Counsel General to Lithuania, Chiune
Sugihara. Happily, the journey concluded in the United States
in 1941.
Twenty
years after their inception, Nobel Laureate in Economics,
Merton Miller, named financial futures as “the
most significant innovation in the past two decades.”
In 1987, Melamed spearheaded the introduction of Globex®,
the world’s first futures electronic trading system, and
became its founding chairman. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange,
today known as the CME Group, is the world’s premier futures
market, where Mr. Melamed serves as a member of the Board
and is chairman of its Strategic Steering Committee.
Mr.
Melamed has written extensively on financial markets. Many
of his essays and lectures can be found on the website www.leomelamed.com. Mr.
Melamed's memoirs Escape to the Futures have
been translated and published in Chinese, Japanese, as well
as Korean. Mr. Melamed is the recipient of many awards including
the 2005 Fred Arditti Innovation Award of the Chicago Mercantile
Exchange. In 2008, Leo Melamed became the recipient of the
Ellis Island Medal of Honor, as well as the William F. Sharpe
Lifetime Achievement Award. He holds an Honorary Professorship
at Renmin University, Beijing, and in 2007 was appointed
Honorary Dean of Peking University.
Leo
Melamed is an attorney by profession and he is an active futures
trader. He is currently Chairman Emeritus of CME Group and
CEO of Melamed & Associates, Inc., a global consulting
enterprise.
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Links of interest:
Melamed & Associates,
Inc.
Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Inc
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