The 2015 Fintech Finance 35: Rumi Morales, CME Ventures

No. 23

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< The 2015 Fintech Finance 35

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23
Rumi Morales
Executive Director
CME Ventures

In mid-2013, Rumi Morales got wind of plans within CME Group to make strategic investments of $500,000 to $5 million in promising start-ups, and she jumped at the chance to be part of them. Then an executive director in international corporate development and finance — a role that included overseeing the Chicago-based futures market giant’s investments in exchanges in Brazil, Dubai, Malaysia and Mexico — Morales joined the new CME Ventures team, led by Mark Fields. The objective, as Fields articulated it: “to harness the power of entrepreneurship and the rapid pace of technological advancement to grow our industry and our business.” When Fields left CME Ventures in April to become CEO of one of its portfolio companies, San Francisco–based secure-messaging-app developer Wickr, Morales succeeded him as head of the unit. “I joined financial services because of venture capital,” says the 39-year-old executive director, who between 1996 and her move to CME in 2010 worked in private equity and venture investing with Petra Group and Beechtree Capital; spent seven years in the U.S. and Asia with Goldman Sachs Group; and ran her own, Singapore-based research boutique, Malmora. In addition to Wickr, CME Ventures has five portfolio companies: 1QB Information Technologies (quantum computing), Dwolla (real-time payments), Nervana Systems (machine learning), Powerlytics (financial analytics) and Ripple (cryptocurrency). “These are technologies that can be applied to the financial services industry in perhaps three to five years’ time,” explains Morales, a Wellesley College graduate and New York University Stern School of Business MBA. “We are really trying to take early looks at technologies that we think will have a far-ranging impact on our overall ecosystem.”


The 2015 Fintech Finance 35

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1. James Robinson III
& James Robinson IV
RRE Ventures

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2. Jane Gladstone
Evercore Partners

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3. Matthew Harris
Bain Capital Ventures

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4. Steven McLaughlin
Financial Technology Partners

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5. Jonathan Korngold
General Atlantic

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6. Richard Garman &
Brad Bernstein
FTV Capital

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7. Amy Nauiokas & Sean Park
Anthemis Group

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8. Thomas Jessop
Goldman Sachs Group

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9. Meyer (Micky) Malka
Ribbit Capital

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10. Hans Morris
Nyca Partners

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11. Maria Gotsch
Partnership Fund for New York City

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12. Marc Andreessen
Andreessen Horowitz

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13. Barry Silbert
Digital Currency Group

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14. Jay Reinemann
Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria

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15. Mariano Belinky
Santander InnoVentures

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16. François Robinet
AXA Strategic Ventures

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17. Vanessa Colella
Citi Ventures

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18. Alan Freudenstein & Gregory Grimaldi
Credit Suisse
NEXT Fund

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19. Justin Brownhill & Neil DeSena
SenaHill Partners

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20. Rodger Voorhies
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

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21. Michael Schlein
Accion International

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22. Kenneth Marlin
Marlin & Associates

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23. Rumi Morales
CME Ventures

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24. Mark Beeston
Illuminate Financial Management

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25. Vladislav Solodkiy
Life.SREDA

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26. Fabian Vandenreydt
Innotribe SWIFT

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27. Derek White
Barclays

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28. Alex Batlin
UBS

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29. Jeffrey Greenberg
& Vincenzo
La Ruffa
Aquiline Capital Partners

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30. P. Howard Edelstein
REDI Holdings

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31. Nektarios Liolios
Startupbootcamp FinTech

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32. Roy Bahat
Bloomberg Beta

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33. Andrew McCormack
Valar Ventures

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34. Lawrence Wintermeyer
Innovate Finance

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35. Janos Barberis
FinTech Hong Kong


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