Chris Isaacson is Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer at Cboe Global Markets, Inc. (Cboe), joining the firm in 2017 as Chief Information Officer during the Bats Global Markets acquisition. Based in Kansas City, Mr. Isaacson is responsible for running the day-to-day operations of the company, including oversight of all technology and operations, the Risk/Information Security teams, the trade desk, infrastructure, data and analytics, and foreign exchange (FX) technology and operations.
As CIO, Mr. Isaacson oversaw all technology and operations (trading and technical), including technology strategy, software engineering and quality, IT infrastructure and the trade desk. He and his team successfully migrated the Cboe Futures Exchange (CFE) to Bats technology on February 25, 2018, less than one year after the acquisition of Bats.
A founding Bats employee in 2005, Mr. Isaacson played a major role in developing the firm into an innovative, world-class technology and markets powerhouse, leading expansion into multiple asset classes and geographies. In 2015 alone, Bats moved or launched eight of its 10 markets while simultaneously introducing new trading, listing and product innovations in the U.S. and Europe. This was followed by the successful Bats initial public offering on the Bats BZX Exchange in April 2016.
Mr. Isaacson began his career as a software engineer at publicly traded Cerner Corp., a healthcare information systems supplier. He was later instrumental in the architecture and implementation of the original Bats trading platform while starting and overseeing operations, including the trade desk, working closely with customers trading on Bats. Previously, he was a software developer at Tradebot Systems, a broker-dealer, from 2003 to 2005.
A frequent speaker and participant in key industry events and initiatives, he has consistently been ranked as one of the top technology professionals in financial services by Institutional Investor, which placed him at No. 1 in its "Tech 40" in 2018, up from the No. 2 slot in 2017.
Mr. Isaacson holds a B.S. degree in information systems with a minor in math from Nebraska Wesleyan University, and was a two-time Academic All-American as a decathlete. He holds an MBA from the Raikes School of Computer Science and Management at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Mr. Isaacson is also involved in leadership at his church.
Mr. Isaacson holds Series 4, 7, 24, 27, 55, 63 and 65 licenses.