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Mr. Passaglia’s trading career was launched in earnest within a month of his graduating from the University of Illinois with a BA in Finance, at an international proprietary trading firm based in Frankfurt, Germany. His ascent to the upper echelons of the trading world did not go unnoticed, and his talent was undeniable. He was hailed as “The King of Continuity” by Futures Magazine, where he was featured as one of the most consistent, disciplined traders of Europe, one of the brightest traders Eurex had ever seen. Upon his return stateside in 2002, Mr. Passaglia founded his own proprietary trading firm, Passaglia Trading. He trained mentored and developed traders, imparting upon them first-hand knowledge and skills. In 2012 he teamed up with Amnon Baazov, with their merger creating ARB Trading Group. As managing partner, Mr. Passaglia has overseen the growth of ARB Trading

Group into one of the largest proprietary trading firms in the world, with a truly global footprint.

Mr. Passaglia’s trading career was launched in earnest within a month of his graduating from the University of Illinois with a BA in Finance, at an international proprietary trading firm based in Frankfurt, Germany. His ascent to the upper echelons of the trading world did not go unnoticed, and his talent was undeniable. He was hailed as “The King of Continuity” by Futures Magazine, where he was featured as one of the most consistent, disciplined traders of Europe, one of the brightest traders Eurex had ever seen. Upon his return stateside in 2002, Mr. Passaglia founded his own proprietary trading firm, Passaglia Trading. He trained mentored and developed traders, imparting upon them first-hand knowledge and skills. In 2012 he teamed up with Amnon Baazov, with their merger creating ARB Trading Group. As managing partner, Mr. Passaglia has overseen the growth of ARB Trading

Group into one of the largest proprietary trading firms in the world, with a truly global footprint.

Vasile’s career spans three countries and two continents. Vasile started his career in investment financial services at National Bank of Canada and, before joining ARB Trading Group, led optimization projects for brokerage solutions. Prior moving to Canada in 2009, Vasile worked for KPMG and in commercial bank industry.

Vasile joined ARB Trading Group as one of the first employees and was instrumental in growing the firm, acting lately as the group CFO. Vasile is a CFA Charter-holder and holds a bachelor’s degree in finance. He has deep experience in financial analysis, trading and accounting/Backoffice operations.

Mr. Jeff Caldwell graduated from Michigan State University with a BA in Music Therapy in 1991. Shortly after graduating, he moved to Chicago and started his career at the Alzheimer’s Family Care Center as a music therapist. During his 10 year tenure at the AFCC he earned his MS degree in Health Law and Administration from DePaul University.

In addition, while at the AFCC he moved into the position of Network Administer. In 1998 he was hired by RUSH Medical Center (Department of Neurological Sciences) as the Network Administrator/Financial Manager. Jeff moved into the financial industry in 2000 with GHCO. He worked his way up starting as a Systems Administrator for GHCO. He worked at the same FCM which went through 6 different name changes in 15 years becoming the Vice President of IT at Wedbush Futures. ARB Trading Group hired Jeff in 2016 as the Head of IT. He brings many years of futures industry expertise.

Mark Downing is ARB’s Chief Operating Officer and a member of the company’s executive management team. Mr. Downing is responsible for ARB’s operations, project management, and business process optimization functions as well as overseeing the launch of various ARB investment funds. Before joining ARB, Mr. Downing served as Chief Operating Officer of Aegea Capital Management. In that role, he managed Aegea’s operations and compliance functions, as well as assisted in the management of the firm’s portfolio of investments. Previously, he has owned and operated his own profitable market making book and built the first successful Eurodollar option trading desk for a leading institutional market maker. Prior to that, Mr. Downing served as a market maker on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange for a prominent local proprietary group. Mr. Downing has also previously held positions as a software engineer at Motorola and CNA Insurance.

Mr. Downing holds a BS from Indiana University with a triple major in Finance, Business Process Management, and Computer Information Systems.

Rob is CEO of Rival Systems, a derivatives execution and risk management software firm he launched in 2015 and is responsible for overseeing all operations and technology for the firm.

A true industry expert, Rob has been able to leverage his technology and finance backgrounds to build advanced trading systems for over 18 years. Prior to launching Rival, Rob was the director of technology for Ronin Capital LLC, a proprietary trading firm in Chicago, from 2003-2015. At Ronin, Rob oversaw the development of the firm’s options trading and risk management platforms and worked with traders to build automated trading strategies across all asset classes.

Prior to working in the trading industry, Rob was a project manager at Sapient Corporation for three years, overseeing global software development projects. His career in technology consulting started at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, where he designed, developed and implemented IT systems for a variety of Fortune 500 clients.

Rob’s professional career has been complemented by his education – he holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and, in 2011, he received his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He is also passionate about his community and currently serves on the Finance Commission for the Village of Hinsdale.

20+ years of financial industry experience, primarily with managed accounts hedge funds platform providers, with a focus on operations and investment infrastructure.

10 years of international experience on a variety of fund structures (UCITS, Cayman segregated portfolios, unit trusts, Irish ICAV) and the related change management due to changing regulations (e.g. Dodd-Frank, Volcker, AIFMD, MiFID)