You joined Cboe in 2025 as CEO. Where was your initial focus, and what’s your strategic vision for Cboe going forward?
I have long admired and respected Cboe and was honoured to join the company as CEO last May. My initial focus was on completing the comprehensive business review that began prior to my joining the company, and then formalising the resulting strategic realignment of our business portfolio. As we announced in October, we are sharpening our strategic focus on our core strengths – derivatives, cash equities, FX, and data services – to unlock new growth opportunities.
This strategic realignment will enable us to leverage the strength of our core businesses and focus on emerging growth opportunities that are aligned with key secular growth trends we see in the marketplace, including:
· capitalising on global asset flows, especially by providing global investors with access to U.S. markets and our proprietary S&P 500 Index (SPX), Cboe Volatility Index (VIX), and data and access product sets,
· growing utilisation of options and other derivatives across investor segments,
· increasing retail investor market participation, both in terms of size and sophistication,
· and emerging products and technologies such as the growth in event and prediction markets, digital assets, tokenisation, and real-time settlement.
We believe this strategic realignment will ensure Cboe is well positioned to lead in a dynamic and evolving market, and will strengthen our long-term vision to be a global derivatives leader.
I am also focused on how we best harness the human capital we have at Cboe. It is our most important asset. We have so many smart, passionate, and dedicated people who care deeply about the industry and the work Cboe does. I need to make sure we are maximising that talent in the best way possible and ensuring we are focused on the things that will drive our growth over the next five to ten years. That means building career pathways, providing exciting new opportunities outside the normal scope of a role, identifying and training our future leaders, ensuring we have robust succession planning in place, and developing a culture of wanting to be in the room when the next breakthrough that Cboe is known for occurs. I could not be more excited about where Cboe is today and where we are headed.
What were some of Cboe’s highlights in 2025?
In a year marked by global uncertainty, market volatility, and geopolitical tensions, we focused on operating resilient and stable markets, and equipping our customers with the risk management tools to navigate markets with confidence.
Across our derivatives franchise, we achieved new milestones, expanded global access to our products, and introduced more innovative solutions to meet the evolving needs of investors, both small and large. Volume in our SPX and VIX options reached new highs, alongside a sixth consecutive record year of U.S. options industry activity. We expanded our offerings with new products such as Magnificent 10 Index futures and options, and Continuous Futures for Bitcoin and Ether – all designed to deliver efficient exposure and access to new trading opportunities within a trusted, regulated framework. We partnered with retail brokers to bring our index options to their clients, creating greater access to options trading for the growing retail investor segment. And as The Options Institute celebrated its 40th anniversary, we invested in education globally and unveiled a new multilingual learning platform to ensure newcomers and experienced traders alike have the knowledge and tools to succeed.
Our equities and FX markets played a vital role in delivering stability and efficiency during a year marked by a fast-moving macro backdrop. Customers turned to our platforms for dependable liquidity and transparent execution, as evidenced by our record-high FX spot average daily volume and continued uptake of premium trading mechanisms on Cboe’s equities exchanges. As the need for market information and analytics grows, customers increasingly relied on our data solutions to gain actionable insights and manage risk.
What are your biggest opportunities in 2026 and beyond? How are you thinking about the emerging prediction and digital asset markets?
Looking ahead to 2026, we will continue to leverage our core areas of strength and build on the strong momentum across our global platform that we experienced in 2025. We will also explore new products, aiming to enter areas where we believe we belong, where we can make a difference and be successful, and which play to our core strengths as an organisation, including prediction markets and digital assets.
On event and prediction markets, we are working towards launching our first offerings later this year. Cboe will take a different approach from most of what we are seeing in this evolving marketplace. We will look to build organically – developing, listing, and clearing our own products. Our focus will be on futures and securities contracts based on macroeconomic indicators and financial instruments – areas that align squarely with who we are and our core capabilities. We will emphasise investor education and access to content to help make decision-making more informed. Our aim is for investors to be sustainably successful, so that if they wish to advance along their investing journey and move up the ecosystem of options – whether equity options, ETF products, or index options like SPX and 0DTE – they feel confident they have the building blocks to do so, enabling them to create wealth or manage risk.
We are also excited about the opportunity in the digital and crypto space, which, in my view, is still in the early stages of development but has a long runway ahead. With broad retail adoption and growing institutional use, supported by a burgeoning ecosystem of platforms, products, and liquidity, the space is poised for continued evolution. While we saw some progress on legislative and regulatory clarity in 2025, a continued push towards a more holistic regulatory approach to the digital space is still needed. Cboe’s focus is on listed derivatives products – an area where we excel and where a mature and robust regulatory framework already exists – and on building a vibrant and holistic ecosystem around digital assets.
Cboe is committed to playing a leading role as the event, prediction, and crypto-digital markets evolve. We will introduce smart and innovative new products, supported by educational resources to help investors better understand and navigate these markets. Market integrity will be paramount. We will advocate for and support trading that is fair, trusted, and transparent, and we will provide robust market oversight, establishing strong guardrails to ensure appropriate investor protections are in place.
It is an exciting time for the industry. Markets are expanding, investor participation is growing, new asset classes are emerging, and technology is driving the convergence of traditional and decentralised markets. As these changes unfold, it is essential that our underlying focus remains on balancing investor protection with the need to allow markets to evolve. Cboe is dedicated to being a leader in product, market, and solution innovation, and to playing its part in shaping the future of our industry.