NinjaTrader taps John O’Reilly as chief marketing officer
FX platform provider, NinjaTrader has appointed John O’Reilly, who has a colorful career across different industries, as its newest Chief Marketing Officer, with immediate effect.
Mr. O’Reilly will be tasked with managing the group’s global marketing capabilities based out of Chicago. His mandate will focus on bolstering the firm’s brand strategy, its product marketing efforts, corporate communications, and digital marketing efforts. He will also lead NinjaTrader’s brand and customer acquisition initiatives to strengthen their position in the retail futures industry.
O’Reilly brings to the CMO role two decades of B2C marketing experience, most recently serving in an analogues position at consumer-credit fintech platform OppFi. He spent there five years and was instrumental in leading OppFi’s operations until it went public in July 2021. Prior to OppFi, O’Reilly spent nearly four years in senior marketing roles with SVP OptionsHouse, an options-centric brokerage acquired by E*TRADE in 2016 for $750 million.
Commenting on the news, Martin Franchi, CEO of NinjaTrader, said: “As an organization, we are committed to transforming retail futures and meeting the growing demand of the trading community for innovative products and services. We created the role of CMO with the purpose of furthering this mission. John’s background and success as an executive in high-growth fintech firms will be invaluable as we look to capitalize on the incredible growth opportunity available as more self-directed traders are introduced to the benefits of futures trading.”
NinjaTrader expands into the futures trading business
Mr. O’Reilly added: “NinjaTrader has continually demonstrated both an entrepreneurial spirit and technical innovation as the established industry leader increasing accessibility to dynamic futures markets. With the recent acquisitions, we are extremely well positioned to accelerate the development of a best-in-class experience for the active retail investor.”
NinjaTrader is said to support over 500,000 active traders around the world with trading software, discount futures brokerage, and real-time support in seven languages. Most recently, it acquired Tradovate Holdings, an NFA registered introducing broker providing brokerage services to traders of futures exchange products.
The US-based software provider highlighted the apparent benefits their combined client base will get following the takeover, describing it as the next logical step for its platform. NinjaTrader said the transaction creates one of “the most formidable” retail futures brokers with combined trading volume in 2021 of approximately 100 million futures contracts.
The move marks a fresh expansion for NinjaTrader into the futures trading business. In 2021, the company acquired the US registered FCM, TransAct Futures and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Infinity Futures.
