Celesta Jurkovich led the Chicago Board of Trade’s Washington office from 1985 to 2001. In that role, she served as the CBOT’s envoy to the House and Senate and as the key liaison with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and other federal regulators. She was a master at taking on−and winning−difficult issues. She was recognized for her expertise on user fees and transactions taxes and for her spirited and successful fight to keep the industry free of those additional costs. She shepherded the deregulation of the exchanges at the CFTC and then cemented it in the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. Celesta came to work with a strong background in banking and was universally respected on Capitol Hill and in government agencies for her knowledge of the industry and her integrity and fairness. Her success was due to these attributes, but also in no small part to the unique Chicago-style political savvy she acquired while working for Chicago’s mayor, Michael Bilandic and CBOT’s Tom Donovan. Chicago and the industry have not had a better and more distinguished champion in Washington.
