Washington, DC— FIA today announced the winners of its President's Award, an annual honor that recognizes outstanding individuals for their contributions to the global cleared derivatives industry over the past year.
The 2024 class of President's Award winners are:
- Natalia da Gama, President's Award – Advocacy
- Helen Gordon, President's Award – Capital
- Martin Kalnins, President's Award – CCP Risk
- Julian O'Leary, President’s Award – Operations
- Lou Rosato, President's Award – Operations
"FIA relies on partners at our member firms to help manage industry-wide projects, contribute to comment letters, inform the industry about emerging trends, and respond quickly to unexpected market events," said FIA President and CEO Walt Lukken. "This award recognizes these five individuals for their direct and meaningful contributions to our work over the past year. FIA is grateful to all of them for partnering with us in our mission of supporting open, transparent and competitive derivatives markets."
The FIA President's Award was established in 2023 and is in addition to the annual FIA Hall of Fame, which honors the lifetime achievements of key individuals in the listed and cleared derivatives industry.
The contributions from each of the 2024 President's Award winners are as follows:
Natalia da Gama, President's Award – Advocacy
Natalia da Gama is director for interest rate derivatives and OTC CCP management at Santander CIB since 2006. Her responsibilities include risk management of OTC CCP clearing (interest rates, FX and credit), management of CCP margin optimization, and collaboration with legal and public policy teams on CCP-related issues, after many years of leading the interbank execution team. Natalia is deeply involved in regulatory changes including EMIR, MiFID II, Basel III, and CDR IV, and has been an instrumental voice in FIA advocacy work adding significant technical expertise to FIA key priority areas. Despite her busy work schedule, she has always made herself available to attend FIA meetings with policymakers across Europe, helping to educate decision-makers on the impact of legislative proposals on important files such as EMIR 3.0.
Helen Gordon, President's Award – Capital
Helen Gordon is managing director, global head of product development and strategy for futures and derivatives clearing at J.P. Morgan based in London. Helen has been in the industry for over 20 years and held various operations positions in clearing at UBS and Barclays before joining J.P. Morgan in 2013 as clearing business manager. She is a board member of the FIA European Advisory Board and part of several FIA committees working on many of FIA’s largest issues related to complex legal, capital, and operational issues. Helen provided early strategic direction as the industry embarked on Basel III endgame/G-SIB advocacy and has been instrumental in regulatory education and engagement on how the proposed US capital rules are connected to the derivatives clearing business.
Martin Kalnins, President's Award – CCP Risk
With wholesale changes to EMIR reporting obligations coming into effect in 2024, collaboration among industry stakeholders is paramount to ensure complete and accurate data is reported in line with regulatory expectations. As senior compliance specialist at Nasdaq, Martin Kalnins also chairs the European Association of Clearing Houses’ EMIR Reporting Working Group. Throughout 2023, Martin played a pivotal role in facilitating engagement between CCPs and clearing members through the joint FIA/EACH EMIR Refit Working Group. This industry forum was essential to converging ideas into industry solutions such as the updated CCP Harmonised File and CCP Mirror Reports.
Julian O'Leary, President’s Award – Operations
Julian O'Leary, COO at GH Financials, has been a member of the EU Operations Committee for many years and his input is keenly listened to due to his experience and breadth of industry knowledge. In March 2023, FIA created a Cyber Risk Taskforce consisting of subject matter experts and business leaders of the exchange-traded and cleared derivatives industry to recommend ways to improve the ability of the industry to withstand the disruptive impacts of a cyberattack. Julian’s leadership and contributions were vital to the work of the taskforce, leading to the publication of the Taskforce After Action Report in September 2023.
Lou Rosato, President's Award – Operations
Lou Rosato is Managing Director, BlackRock, and oversees Industry Engagement and Strategy in partnership with BlackRock’s Counterparties, Custodians, Third-Party Providers, Industry Organizations, Utilities and Clients. Lou played an important leadership role on the FIA Taskforce on Open Standards set-up in the wake of the March 2020 post-trade backlogs that lead to FIA forming the Derivatives Market Institute for Standards (DMIST). Lou has been an influential champion for the development of industry standards through DMIST, including being a key voice in helping to raise awareness of the work of DMIST and the importance of adopting DMIST standards.
