Richard L. Sandor to discuss "Good Derivatives: A Story of Financial and Environmental Innovation" on September 20

"The father of financial futures" to address IIT law and business schools

"Good Derivatives: A Story of Financial and Environmental Innovation" is the topic of a lecture by Richard L. Sandor, chairman and chief executive officer of Environmental Financial Products LLC (EFP), on September 20 at 4:30 p.m. in room 590 on the Downtown Campus of Illinois Institute of Technology, 565 West Adams Street (between Clinton and Jefferson streets) in Chicago. The program, which is co-sponsored by the IIT Chicago-Kent Institute for Compliance and the IIT Stuart Center for Financial Markets, is free and open to the public, but reservations are required. A reception and book signing will follow the lecture. Please click here to RSVP.

Sandor will discuss themes set forth in his book, Good Derivatives: A Story of Financial and Environmental Innovation (Wiley 2012). The book tells the story of "LaSalle Street, not Wall Street," and also examines how financial innovation—a concept that is misunderstood and under attack—has been a positive force in the last four decades. Sandor says, if properly designed and regulated, these "good derivatives" can open vast possibilities to address a variety of global problems.

A financial innovator known as the "father of financial futures," Richard Sandor has been at the epicenter of environmental and financial markets for more than four decades. Sandor founded what became the Climate Exchange family of companies including: the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), the world's first and North America's only voluntary, legally binding greenhouse gas cap-and-trade system; the Chicago Climate Futures Exchange (CCFE), the world's leading futures exchange for environmental products; and the European Climate Exchange (ECX), Europe's leading exchange operating in the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme. Additional global affiliates included the Tianjin Climate Exchange in China, the Montreal Climate Exchange in Canada, and Envex in Australia.

In the early 1970s, Sandor served as vice president and chief economist of the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). It was at that time he earned the reputation as the principal architect of the interest-rate futures market. From 1991 to 1994, Sandor was chairman of the CBOT Clean Air Committee, which developed the first spot and futures markets for sulfur dioxide emission allowances and supervised the annual allowance auctions conducted on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He also served as vice chairman of the CBOT Insurance Committee and originated and co-authored the catastrophe and crop insurance futures and options contracts.

Sandor currently heads Environmental Financial Products LLC, a Chicago-based company that specializes in inventing, designing, and developing new financial markets with a special emphasis on investment advisory services. EFP was established in 1998 and was the predecessor company and incubator to the CCX, ECX and CCFE.

IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law is the law school of Illinois Institute of Technology, a private, Ph.D.-granting institution with programs in engineering, psychology, architecture, business, design and law. In 1981, IIT Chicago-Kent established the first LL.M. Program in Financial Services Law in the nation. The Institute for Compliance provides classes, lectures, and events relating to financial compliance for the Chicago community.

IIT Stuart School of Business was established in 1969 with a bequest from IIT alumnus and financier Harold Leonard Stuart. The IIT Stuart Center for Financial Markets has as its mission the enhancement of the public understanding of modern financial markets, especially organized markets such as stock exchanges and derivatives exchanges worldwide. The center administers master's degree programs in financial markets, finance and mathematical finance.

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