Hugh Freedberg is widely credited with the turnaround and reinvention of the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange. Originally from South Africa, he began his career with American Express before working in senior positions at Salomon, TSB and Hill Samuel. When LIFFE’s market share was threatened in 1998, he was brought in to restructure and reorient the open-outcry exchange, turning a mutual organization into a for-profit business that in the future would operate as an entirely electronic market. Such was the success of the plan Freedberg put into action that other exchanges bought LIFFE’s new trading platform. In 2002 Euronext bought LIFFE and made him head of its derivatives business. Over the next three years, he directed the transfer of Euronext’s markets onto LIFFE’s platform, creating the first multi-national derivatives market. When NYSE took over Euronext in 2007, he became Head of Global Derivatives and Chairman of the Business & Technology Integration Council. In 2009 he stepped down after nearly 11 years as CEO. He remains Chairman of LIFFE. Known for his thoughtful, no-nonsense style of leadership, he drove an enormous cultural and technological change, turning LIFFE into a leading market that has held its spot on the top five list of exchanges in terms of volume.
