This year, FIA has established its President's Award, an annual honor that recognizes outstanding individuals for their contributions to the global cleared derivatives industry over the past year.
Six individuals make up the inaugural 2023 class of President's Award winners:
- Nick Briggs, Operations
- Max E, Operations
- Edward Mayfield, Legal
- Laura Mul, Next Gen
- Raj Ramanath, CCP Risk
- Meher Sutaria, 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. "These six individuals represent the bright future of our industry, and 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 to honor outstanding individuals for their direct and meaningful contributions to our work over the past year. This award 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 2023 President's Award honorees are as follows:
Nick Briggs, President's Award – Operations
Nick Briggs, Vice President, Global Strategy and Clearing Infrastructure Solutions at Bank of America, has led industry-level discussions and opinions in the post-trade operations space over many years and across numerous topics. Nick is highly respected and his wealth of experience and knowledge, together with his approachability, mean colleagues across clearing firms, exchanges and CCPs actively seek out his views. When COVID-19 struck and the industry faced the simultaneous challenges of managing extreme volumes and volatility while moving to remote working, Nick was instrumental in defining how the industry needed to coordinate and resolve post-trade backlogs. Following on from COVID, Nick played a leading role in the conversations around improving post-trade processing that led to FIA forming the Derivatives Market Institute for Standards (DMIST).
Max E, President's Award – Operations
Max E has worked in the exchange traded derivatives industry for over 19 years. In that time, he has held regional responsibility in various roles in operations, relationship management, product development and business management. Currently Max is Head of Listed Derivatives Clearing Product APAC, Deutsche Bank AG Singapore. He also serves as chair of the FIA Asia Operations Committee. Max's openness in sharing his thoughts, knowledge and experience has been instrumental in aiding operational continuity among the APAC listed derivatives community. This was especially evident throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and during the unprecedented market conditions in its aftermath. Max is a valued voice in the region and always brings positive energy to his work.
Edward Mayfield, President's Award – Legal
Edward Mayfield, Director and Assistant General Counsel at Bank of America, is the industry's "netting whisperer." There are few people who understand the intricacies of FCM netting and collateral opinions, and still fewer who are willing to invest the time required to review the opinions cover-to-cover. Edward is the exception. Edward has worked tirelessly over the years in FIA's FCM Netting Committee to refine the legal foundation of the FCM agency clearing model and to leverage this refined understanding to improve the suite of FCM netting opinions for jurisdictions from the US to Europe to Asia. While technical in nature, his work benefits FCMs that rely on netting opinions for capital relief, risk management and access to non-US customers.
Laura Mul, President's Award – Next Gen
Laura Mul, Director, US Futures and Commodities Compliance at RBC Capital Markets, has been a leader on FIA's Law & Compliance Division's working groups on JAC, Position Limits, and Best Practices. With nearly 10 years of experience in the industry, she is well-versed in a broad range of issues. She is a valued voice among FIA membership and is known for her practical, easily discernible and candid approach to issues. She is viewed as a rising star and is trusted by the FIA team and her colleagues in the industry to provide thoughtful feedback. FIA staff greatly appreciate her consistent attendance on working group calls and at events.
Meher Sutaria, President's Award – Operations
Meher Sutaria, Executive Director and Global Head of Futures and Derivatives Clearing Operations and Equities Head of Regulatory Reporting at JPMorgan Chase, played a leading role in the lessons learned conversations and FIA taskforce set-up in the wake of the March 2020 post-trade backlogs that led to the formation of DMIST. Meher has long been a strong voice in the operations and reporting space where her deep knowledge and clarity of insight are respected across the industry. In particular, Meher's leadership and support for the work of FIA's Operations Committee over many years have been key to the effectiveness of the committee.
Rajalakshmi Ramanath, President's Award – CCP Risk
Raj Ramanath is Executive Director at JPMorgan Chase and has held a range of senior positions in risk management for 20 years. Raj actively participates in various FIA committees and working groups and often raises risk issues to FIA staff for discussion and consideration by the industry. Raj always finds the most appropriate report, citation, or background papers to inform her decision and help craft FIA's output. She is well respected by her peers and by regulators. Raj has been instrumental in the last year on CCP transparency initiatives, FIA consultations and market volatility workstreams.
