Leo Melamed

Leo Melamed, a Holocaust survivor, found safety in the US during World War II. He is the founder of financial futures. In 1972, as chairman of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME Group), he revolutionized markets with the creation of the International Monetary Market – the first futures exchange for financial instruments – and the launch of currency futures. Twenty years after their inception, Nobel Laureate Merton Miller named financial futures"the most significant innovation of the past two decades." In 1987, Melamed revolutionized futures trading again with the founding of Globex, the world's first futures electronic-trading system.