Raj Fernando | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Rajiv Kumar Fernando July 8, 1971 |
| Alma mater | Beloit College |
Rajiv K. "Raj" Fernando (born July 8, 1971) is an American businessman, political fundraiser and donor, and philanthropist. He is the current Chairman and CEO of Workstorm.com and the former CEO of Chopper Trading.
Fernando was born to CK and Laura Fernando while the two were living in Denmark, [1] after CK completed a Fulbright Scholarship at New York University and Laura completed her studies in classical piano under a Juilliard School professor. [1] [2] He was born the youngest of three children after his two sisters, Netasha and Tanya, and moved to the United States before the age of one. [1] [2]
Fernando attended Beloit College, where he earned bachelor's degrees in economics and history. [1] He also studied at the University College London. [3]
In 2018, Fernando received the Distinguished Service Citation from Beloit College. [4] The award recognizes alumni on the basis of overall achievements, personal growth in career, and outstanding civic, cultural, and professional/business service.
While in college, Fernando volunteered at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. From 1991 to 2001, Fernando worked in various roles including trading positions at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade. [5] [6]
In 2002, Fernando founded Chopper Trading, a Chicago-based proprietary trading firm that concentrated in the areas of fixed income, equities, and other products. [7] Fernando became CEO of the company. During Chopper's development, Fernando designed, implemented, and managed sophisticated risk management, communications, trading, monitoring, and source code security systems. [8] Since the company's founding, Fernando's work helped make the company a major participant on the world's largest global exchanges including the CME, Nasdaq, LSE, ICE, and Eurex with approximately 250 employees globally. [5] [9] [10]
In 2010, Fernando was part of a staff roundtable discussion on disruptive trading practices for the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. [11] [12]
In January 2015, Fernando sold Chopper Trading to DRW Trading Group in "a deal that [would] fuse two of the best known companies in Chicago's proprietary trading community." [13] [14]
In 2015, Fernando founded Workstorm, a technology company based in Chicago. Workstorm’s digital collaboration platform is built to be highly secure and includes videoconferencing, secure messaging, email and calendar integration, file sharing and custom integration capabilities. In 2020, Business Insider called Workstorm a “more secure Slack competitor.” [15] Fernando is currently CEO of Workstorm. [16] [17]
Fernando is a board member of the Chicago Council of Global Affairs. He previously served on the boards of the American Security Project and the Foreign Policy Leadership Committee at the Brookings Institution. [1] [18] [19]
Fernando was appointed to the State Department's International Security Advisory Board (ISAB) during the tenure of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He submitted his resignation to Secretary Clinton on August 17, 2011, citing a self-proclaimed need to "focus my energy on the operations of my company" because of "unique, unexpected, and excessive volatility in the international markets." [20] According to State Department emails later obtained by Citizens United and given to ABC News, Fernando submitted his resignation two days after an ABC News investigative team contacted the State Department asking about his qualifications to be a member of the ISAB and the procedure that led to Fernando's appointment. [20] Wade Boese, then Chief of Staff for the Office of the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, said in one of the released emails that "the true answer is simply that S [Secretary Clinton] staff (Cheryl Mills) added him. The board's membership preceded me. Raj was not on the list [of prospective members] sent to S; he was added at their insistence." [20]
Defending Fernando's appointment, ISAB executive director Richard Hartman called him as an expert in "cyber security" and said Fernando had experience in the private sector implementing sophisticated risk management systems, information technology and international financial markets. [21] Retired Brigadier General Stephen A. Cheney, an ISAB member and CEO of American Security Project, said Fernando's "expertise in cyber-security [is] a great asset to [U.S.] national security." [11]
In 2011, Fernando worked with the National Democratic Institute to monitor the first presidential election in Egypt. [22]
Fernando has made political contributions to Democratic candidates since 2003. [21] He fundraised for Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign, raising up to $100,000. [21] Fernando donated US$9,400 to Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. [23] He also fundraised for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. [21] He donated $30,000 to WomenCount, a political action committee whose aim is to elect Democratic women who run for office. [21]
Fernando serves on the board of directors for PAWS Chicago, a no-kill animal shelter, [24] and the board of trustees for Beloit College. [25] He previously served on the board of trustees for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. [26] He has supported Wounded Warriors, and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metropolitan Chicago. [27] [28] Fernando has also been a contributor to The Steppenwolf Theatre, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, and the Illinois Holocaust Museum, among other organizations. [29] He has donated between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation. [21]
Eric Emerson Schmidt is an American businessman and former software engineer who served as the CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011, and as the company's executive chairman from 2011 to 2015. He also served as the executive chairman of parent company Alphabet Inc. from 2015 to 2017, and Technical Advisor at Alphabet from 2017 to 2020. In April 2022, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimated his net worth to be US$25.1 billion.
John David Podesta Jr. is an American political consultant who has served as senior advisor to the president for clean energy innovation and implementation since September 2022. Podesta previously served as White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton from 1998 to 2001 and counselor to President Barack Obama from 2014 to 2015. Before that, he served in the Clinton administration as White House staff secretary from 1993 to 1995 and White House deputy chief of staff for operations from 1997 to 1998.
Cornelius Francis "Neil" Hartigan is an American politician, lawyer, and judge who served as the 38th Attorney General of Illinois and the 40th Lieutenant Governor of Illinois. He is a member of the Democratic Party.
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is an American politician and diplomat who served as the 67th United States secretary of state in the administration of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a U.S. senator representing New York from 2001 to 2009, and as the first lady of the United States to former president Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the party's nominee in the 2016 presidential election, becoming the first woman to win a presidential nomination by a major U.S. political party and the first woman to win the popular vote for U.S. president.
The Clinton Foundation is a nonprofit organization under section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. tax code. It was established by former president of the United States Bill Clinton with the stated mission to "strengthen the capacity of people in the United States and throughout the world to meet the challenges of global interdependence." Its offices are located in New York City and Little Rock, Arkansas.
Anthony Dean Rodham was an American consultant and businessman who was the youngest brother of Hillary Clinton and brother-in-law of former U.S. President Bill Clinton.
Thomas Peterffy is a Hungarian-born American billionaire businessman. He is the founder, chairman, and the largest shareholder of Interactive Brokers. Peterffy worked as an architectural draftsman after emigrating to the United States, and later became a computer programmer. In 1977, he purchased a seat on the American Stock Exchange and played a role in developing the first electronic trading platform for securities. As of March 2024, Forbes estimated his net worth at US$34.4 billion, making him the 46th richest man in the world.
Robert Wolf is the former Chairman and CEO of UBS Americas as well as the president and chief operating officer of UBS Investment Bank.
Neil Gary Bluhm is an American billionaire real estate and casino magnate. He is a partner of Midwest Gaming & Entertainment, which owns several casinos. He had an estimated net worth of US$7 billion in October 2021.
Virtu Financial is an American company that provides financial services, trading products and market making services. Virtu provides product suite including offerings in execution, liquidity sourcing, analytics, broker-neutral, multi-dealer platforms in workflow technology and two-sided quotations and trades in equities, commodities, currencies, options, fixed income, and other securities on over 230 exchanges, markets, and dark pools. Virtu uses proprietary technology to trade large volumes of securities. The company went public on the Nasdaq in 2015.
Bradley Toshio Katsuyama is a Canadian financial services executive. He is the CEO and co-founder of the IEX, the Investors Exchange. He left RBC in 2012 to co-found IEX under the premise that it would be a fairer stock trading venue than other exchanges.
Hillary Clinton is an American politician from the state of New York who was the Democratic Party's 2016 nominee for president of the United States. Clinton is the first woman in U.S. history to be nominated for president of the United States by a major political party. She was defeated in the 2016 general election by Republican Donald Trump.
During her tenure as United States Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton drew controversy by using a private email server for official public communications rather than using official State Department email accounts maintained on federal servers. After a years-long FBI investigation, it was determined that Clinton's server did not contain any information or emails that were clearly marked classified. Federal agencies did, however, retrospectively determine that 100 emails contained information that should have been deemed classified at the time they were sent, including 65 emails deemed "Secret" and 22 deemed "Top Secret". An additional 2,093 emails were retroactively designated confidential by the State Department.
Oscar Munoz is an American businessman, board member, and public speaker who was executive chairman of United Airlines from 2020 to 2021, after having been chief executive officer (CEO) of United Airlines from 2015 to 2020. Prior to his role at United Airlines, Munoz served on the board of parent company United Continental Holdings (UCH) and held multiple executive positions at CSX Corporation and AT&T.
This article lists potential candidates for the Democratic nomination for Vice President of the United States in the 2016 election. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee for President of the United States, chose Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia as her running mate. The formal nomination took place at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. The Clinton–Kaine ticket lost the 2016 presidential election to the Republican Trump–Pence ticket, and Kaine returned to the Senate following the campaign.
During Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, a number of individuals, organizations, and countries allegedly contributed to the Clinton Foundation either before, or while, pursuing interests through ordinary channels with the U.S. State Department.
In March 2016, the personal Gmail account of John Podesta, a former White House chief of staff and chair of Hillary Clinton's 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, was compromised in a data breach accomplished via a spear-phishing attack, and some of his emails, many of which were work-related, were hacked. Cybersecurity researchers as well as the United States government attributed responsibility for the breach to the Russian cyber spying group Fancy Bear, allegedly two units of a Russian military intelligence agency.
Peter W. Smith was an American investment banker who had a 40-year career managing corporate acquisitions and venture investments. He was active in Republican politics. In 1998, he was identified as a major financial supporter of the 1993 Troopergate story, in which several Arkansas state troopers accused U.S. President Bill Clinton of having carried out sexual dalliances while he was Governor of Arkansas.
Stephen M. Calk is the founder, former Chairman and CEO of The Federal Savings Bank, a federally chartered National Bank headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. He was an economic advisor to Donald Trump during the 2016 United States presidential election campaign.
This is a timeline of events related to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.