The 2015 Fintech Finance 35: Rumi Morales, CME Ventures

In mid-2013,Rumi Moralesgot 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.”