John Gilmore, a Chicago native, achieved lasting success as the head of Goldman Sachs futures operations. After many years on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade trading agricultural futures, he was hired by Goldman Sachs in 1979, just as the age of financial futures was beginning to dawn. Gilmore built up the Goldman Sachs operation and turned it into one of the biggest players in the Treasury futures market. Despite widespread suspicion of investment banks in the Chicago futures community, Gilmore never lost the respect of the floor, and in 1986 he was elected chairman of the Chicago Board of trade, the only person from a Wall Street firm ever named to that position. Gilmore’s legacy was not limited to Chicago, however, he was one of the first FCM leaders to focus on the development of futures markets in Europe and Japan.
