In the News: A profile of DRW's Seth Thomson

Chicago has become the epicenter of bitcoin mania. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Cboe Global Markets were the first exchanges to launch bitcoin futures at the end of 2017. And one of the largest traders of cryptocurrencies is Chicago’s own DRW.

Since the firm launched in 1992, one of its key principles has been diversification. That’s where DRW’s chief information officer, Seth Thomson, comes into the picture. The Quantitative Risk Management (QRM) and Citadel alumnus joined DRW in July 2007. The firm was aggressively moving into the electronic trading space as Thomson arrived. That meant that it needed a new office, improved datacenters and an overhaul of its infrastructure.

“One of the biggest challenges here is maintaining diversification,” Thomson says. “We are trading so many things in so many ways that involve a lot of technology solutions and support. So one of our challenges is expanding in a scalable way that lets us grow and automating across that, but also not doing that to a point where we’re limiting innovation.”

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