JOHN F. (JACK) SANDNER
Following 13 years as Chairman of the Board of Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the longest serving exchange chairman in the history of the futures industry, Jack Sandner was appointed Special Policy Advisor to CME Inc. Board of Directors in January 1998. During the last two decades, under his leadership, the CME embarked on numerous and ambitious new initiatives to trade products from around the globe - and the CME became the global financial services industry pacesetter for the 1980s and 1990s.
Mr. Sandner, who joined the CME in 1971, has served continuously on its board of directors since 1977. He has served on and chaired scores of exchange and industry committees. Currently he serves on the Executive and Strategic Planning Oversight committees. In 1978 he became President and CEO of RB&H Financial Services L.P., a futures commission merchant and clearing member firm of the CME which has 78 offices serving futures clients. He serves as Chairman and CEO of FreeDrive.com, an Internet applications and storage company and is on the board of Click Commerce, an Internet channel management software company.
Under Mr. Sandner’s leadership, the CME developed: Eurodollar futures, the most actively traded derivatives product in the world; stock index futures and options, for which the Merc has become the world trading center; and GLOBEX, the international after-hours, electronic trading system launched in 1992. In April 1993, he was appointed Chairman of GLOBEX. Recognized as an industry leader, he has testified frequently before Congress on the value and efficiency of futures risk management products and financial services regulation. In December 1992, President Clinton invited Mr. Sandner to participate in his economic summit in Little Rock, where he served as the futures and options industry’s sole representative. In 1995 U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin appointed him to the U.S. Advisory Commission on Financial Services. In 1997 he was asked to be the U.S. chair for financial services at the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue Conference in Rome. And in 1998 he was appointed to the CFTC Financial Products Advisory Committee.
In 2001, Mr. Sandner was appointed to the National Digital Strategy Advisory Board (NDSAB) to provide advice and counsel to the Library of Congress on developing national digital strategy for the preservation of digital materials and information.
In 1999 President Clinton appointed Mr. Sandner to the President’s Export Council.
In 1993, Mr. Sandner was named Man of the Year by the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. In 1996 Former President George Bush presented Mr. Sandner with the Points of Light Award for Excellence in Corporate Community Service for Amicus, the volunteer organization Mr. Sandner founded. He was the Brazilian-American 1996 U.S. Person of the Year.
In 1998 Mr. Sandner was a recipient of the Horatio Alger Award, and the CME named an endowed chair “Chicago Mercantile Exchange John F. Sandner Chair in Futures and Options Studies” at Northwestern University’s J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management.
Born Nov. 3, 1941, Mr. Sandner, the Chicago native, graduated as valedictorian from high school and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965 from Southern Illinois University. He earned a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from University of Notre Dame, where he also received the Law School’s Dean Clarence Manion and A. Harold Weber Awards and won the 3-year moot-court competition. While at Notre Dame, he earned a fellowship to the Law Science Academy, where he won the Dr. Ruth Jackson Award and graduated with high honors. In May 1994, Roosevelt University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.
A member of the Illinois Bar since 1968, Mr. Sandner has been admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals, the U.S. District Court and the Illinois Supreme Court.
He is a trustee of the University of Notre Dame (1993-) Roosevelt University (1994-) and Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center (1992-). In 1995 he became a member of the Northwestern University Associates. He sits on the boards of the National Futures Association (1992-), the Lyric Opera of Chicago (1993-), the Illinois World Trade Center of Chicago (1993-), the Constitutional Rights Foundation Chicago (1993-), The Auditorium Theater (1995-), the Museum of Science and Industry (2001), and chairs the board of Amicus, a volunteer CME organization with 900 members providing community service.
Mr. Sandner is a member of the editorial board of the London-based Journal of Derivatives (1994-), a founding board member of the International Press Center-Chicago (1991-), a director of the Economic Club of Chicago (1995-) and a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago, Chicago Club and the Executive Club of Chicago. He is a member of the Advisory Boards of Mercy Hospital and Medical Center (1988-) and Chicago Cares (1993-). He is a director of the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine at the Eastern Virginia Medical School and the Northern Illinois Council on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse.
Mr. Sandner is married and has seven children.
Last updated: January 2, 2002
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