Prediction Markets Exchange Rothera Expands Leadership Team With Seven Executive Appointments

CFTC-regulated event contract exchange Rothera has announced seven executive hires and promotions across its technology, risk, compliance, security, operations, legal and product teams.

Rothera is a US exchange and clearing house built for event contract markets, set up as a joint venture between retail trading platform Robinhood and trading firm Susquehanna International Group (SIG). The company said the new leadership will support new product launches, oversee trading activity and maintain the risk controls needed for institutions to take part in event contract markets.

The appointments bring in senior people from exchanges, clearing houses and trading firms including the Options Clearing Corporation, Citadel, Brevan Howard, Intercontinental Exchange, Cboe and IEX.

The Appointments

1. Saikat Bhattacharjee, Chief Risk Officer, joins from the Options Clearing Corporation (OCC), where he was a Principal in Model Risk Management. He previously helped build Citadel's firmwide risk function and has advised the CFTC as a consultant on risk and margin models.

1. Kevin Dan, Chief Compliance and Regulatory Officer, previously ran the regulatory function at both Crypto.com Derivatives North America and Nadex. His earlier roles include Cboe, the National Futures Association, DRW Trading and HC Technologies.

1. Pat DeFrancesco, Chief Technology Officer, was CTO for Systematic Trading at Brevan Howard and CTO at Genesis Trading, and before that led credit derivatives technology strategy at Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).

1. Ryan Mendel, Chief Information Security Officer and Chief Information Officer, was CIO of LedgerX and has more than 20 years' experience running IT and cybersecurity functions.

1. Hugo Nistal Gonzalez, Vice President of Product Management, held senior product roles at Bitvavo and Cboe Digital (formerly ErisX), working on exchange and clearing technology from inception through to production.

1. Jena Pollock, Associate General Counsel, spent more than three years as Associate General Counsel at Underdog Sports, advising on its entry into prediction markets and its acquisition of a CFTC-registered designated contract market (DCM) and derivatives clearing organisation (DCO). She was previously in private practice at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Jones Day.

1. Eric Schmid, Vice President and Head of Operations, spent over 12 years at IEX, most recently as Senior Product Manager for the IEX Options Exchange, after leadership roles in market operations.

“Rothera’s development, and our ability to manage rapid growth and expansion, requires us to assemble a team of experienced professionals that can collectively serve as the backbone of a Wall Street institution. Bringing together executives that have managed technology, risk, product, security, and operations at exchanges and clearinghouses supports our journey to become a leading trading platform for a growing asset class. This team sets Rothera apart and will help us expand while driving our high standards for performance and execution.” - Thomas Chippas, CEO at Rothera

Rothera's Growth Since Launch

Rothera says it passed 6 billion cumulative contracts traded in October, following its launch in May 2026. Its exchange and clearing licences came from MIAXdx, the venue formerly known as LedgerX, which the Robinhood and Susquehanna joint venture acquired and renamed Rothera earlier this year.

Robinhood's second quarter 2026 results put event contracts revenue at $156 million for the quarter, up more than tenfold year on year and ahead of crypto revenue of $100 million. Robinhood customers traded a record 13.6 billion event contracts in the quarter, and Rothera had passed 3.5 billion contracts traded by the time the results were published at the end of July.

The hires come as more institutional infrastructure is built around prediction markets. LIQUIDITYFINDER has covered Kalshi becoming the first regulated US exchange to launch perpetual futures, Interactive Brokers bringing Kalshi, CME Group and ForecastEx into a single prediction markets platform, and trading technology providers Devexperts and dxFeed adding event-based trading for brokers and Kalshi contract data.

For more on how institutions access event contracts, read LIQUIDITYFINDER's interview with Kalshi's Head of Institutional Andy Ross, What Is Kalshi Doing In The Institutional Space?, and Prediction Markets and Disturbances in the Force on what the asset class means for brokers.

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