Ryan Kwiatkowski is Managing Director: Head of Broker Dealer Sales at StoneX Financial in Winter Park, Florida. He has 22 years of industry experience in equity trading and sales. Mr. Kwiatkowski began his career at Raymond James Financial in the Equity Capital Markets Division as a broker dealer sales specialist then joined StoneX Financial in 2005 where he continues his career. His focus area is in international equities. Mr. Kwiatkowski has been involved with Security Traders Association of Florida since 2000 and is a former President of STAF. Mr. Kwiatkowski holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of South Florida and a Masters of Business Administration from Tampa College.

Jim Toes has served as President and CEO of Security Traders Association (STA) since 2011. In this role, Mr. Toes maintains STA’s relationship with U.S. regulators and congressional policymakers, advocating for the employees and customers of the financial markets. Under Mr. Toes’ leadership, STA has written more than 50 comment letters on a wide range of issues under the regulatory oversight of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Department of Treasury, Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), FINRA, and the Senate and House Financial Services Committees. In addition, Mr. Toes has penned close to 100 articles on current events and human interest stories that resonate well with individual members and align with STA’s core principles.

Mr. Toes has nearly 35 years of experience in the securities business, particularly within equity and options sales, trading, and clearing. Prior to joining STA, Mr. Toes was a Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch for 18 years, where he held various management positions, interacting with a broad range of clients including institutional and middle market asset managers, broker-dealers, and retail investors. Over the course of his career, Mr. Toes has also used his breadth of market structure knowledge to serve on various best execution and market structure committees and has testified before Congress. As a past President of the Security Traders Association of New York and a former Governor and Secretary of STA, Mr. Toes has a deep understanding of the STA organization and the vital role its 24 Affiliate organizations in North America play in the success and mission of the Association.

James Hyde is a Senior Director of ICE – Head of Business Development for NYSE Options which includes the NYSE American (aka Amex) and Arca platforms. He currently serves on the STANY Board as 2nd President and on the STA Board with a focus on Options as Chairman of the STA Listed Options Committee (LOC). Mr. Hyde is the former Vice Chairman of the American Stock Exchange Board and Senior Supervisory Officer on the Trading Floor. As a Floor Governor, he chaired numerous Exchange operating committees and was appointed as Chairman of the Amex Technology Committee. Prior to the closing of the NYSE Euronext/Amex transaction, he was asked to serve as liaison among NYSE Euronext senior staff and the Amex constituencies. Concurrently, he was also a Registered Options Trader for AGS Specialists LLC (aka Integral Derivatives LLC). Prior to trading for AGS/ID Specialists, Mr. Hyde was a Senior Managing Director and head of Option trading for Kellogg Capital Group, L.L.C. He was instrumental in launching Kellogg into the Option, ETF and broker business, through acquisitions of Knight Securities, Spear Leads and Kellogg Index products, the Fogel Group, and the Van Der Moolen Company. Additionally, he is co-founder of TAHOE Trading LLC and TAHOE Technologies, a proprietary analytical software platform utilized in the market today. Also, in 2005 he negotiated and closed the transaction transferring control of the American Stock Exchange back to the members from NASDAQ. He received his B.A. from St. John’s.

Julie Andress is a Director, Institutional Equity Sales Trading at KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc. She is responsible for managing institutional investor, accounts, providing research commentary and overseeing best execution trading. Prior to joining KBCM in 2011, she served as a senior account manager with Bloomberg LP. Ms. Andress has been an active member of STA for more than a decade. She has served on the board of the Ohio Security Traders Association since 2014, she has held the roles of Treasurer, Vice President, and is a current Governor. In 2016, she was named “Rising Star” by Markets Media. Ms. Andress is a committee member for the STA Women in Finance, joining as an affiliate member in 2015 and committee member since 2016. She is a member of Key Women’s Network. Ms. Andress is a very involved community member. In 2015, she was recognized for her fundraising efforts for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation being named Northeastern Ohio’s “Young Professional of the Year” and nationally “CF Finest.” In 2016, she co-founded the associate board of The Transplant House of Cleveland, an organization that provides temporary housing and supportive community to organ transplant patients and their families. She is a graduate of John Carroll University.

Kevin Skarbek is the Head equity trader at G1X/SIG. He has more than 20 years of experience in the industry working on the trade desk. Mr. Skarbek is involved in the trading, sales and execution services with many of his retail clients across the Capital Market division. Mr. Skarbek has been a member of the Security Traders Association of Chicago (STAC) for 19 years, and was recently STAC President in 2020. He is currently the STAC scholarship President.

Kate McAllister is in Business Development at Global Liquidity Partners, a technology company focusing on equity electronic execution services. Ms. McAllister has more than 20 years of industry experience in equity trading and sales, including previous work at Virtu Financial (ITG), Citigroup and Merrill Lynch. Ms. McAllister has been involved with STANY and SFSTA for much of her career, and currently serves as Co-Chair of the STA Women in Finance committee.

Ms. McAllister currently holds the FINRA Series 7, 24, 55, and 63 and a BS in finance from The Charles F Dolan School of Business at Fairfield University. She resides in Little Silver, NJ with her husband and three children.

Patrick Fagan currently serves as Director of Algorithmic Sales at Piper Sandler. Mr. Fagan has more than 20 years experience in the securities trading industry. He began his career on the floor of the Boston Stock Exchange as a clerk working his way up to manage a specialist book for Pershing Trading. After the Boston Stock Exchange, Mr. Fagan held senior sales trading roles at Wedbush Securities, Janney Capital and now Piper Sandler. He is a member of the Boston Security Traders Association (BSTA) . He served on the BSTA board for six years, becoming President in 2020 and 2021. Mr. Fagan currently holds the Series 7, 55, and 63. He earned a BA from the University of Massachusetts and currently lives in Medford, MA with his wife Deirdre and two children.

Jeremy Haber is a VP in the Order Flow Management (OFM) group at Fidelity Institutional® (FI), the Fidelity Investments business that offers financial professionals and institutions access to the investment, technology, and platform solutions they need to service their clients and grow their businesses. Fidelity Investments is a leading provider of investment management, retirement planning, portfolio guidance, brokerage, benefits outsourcing, and other financial products and services to institutions, financial intermediaries, and individuals.
In this role, Mr. Haber is responsible for equity and options order routing and best execution on behalf of Fidelity’s retail, advisor, and broker-dealer customers; engaging with market centers; and supporting the firm’s market structure advocacy and engagement.
Prior to assuming his current position, Mr. Haber held roles in corporate strategy and electronic trading product development, including coverage of smart order routing and electronic workflow tools, trading analytics, and oversight of the firm’s Alternative Trading System, CrossStream ATS.
Mr. Haber is a member of the STA’s Retail Advisory Committee (RAC) and Listed Options Committee (LOC). Mr. Haber holds a BSc from Tufts University, an MBA from Boston University, and the Series 7, 24, 55, 63 licenses.

Patricia E. Koetzner is Managing Director Equity Trading and Sales for Siebert Williams Shank & Co. LLC, a leading minority owned broker dealer. Patricia’s two primary functions include; driving new revenue growth by expanding revenue generating relationships and facilitating equity trading for the firm. Her equity trading functions include traditional long/short sales trading coverage, implementation of algorithmic strategies, share repurchases, trading and program trading. Ms. Koetzner has served in various capacities in the securities industry for now over 25 years, most recently including her role as Managing Director/Head of Equity Sales & Trading at CastleOak Securities, L.P. Prior to that, Ms. Koetzner served as vice president of Barclays Capital for seven years where she covered cash accounts and repurchased shares for corporations, before becoming a member of its electronic trading group. For the first decade of her career, she was a NASDAQ market maker for firms including Neuberger Berman, LLC, Gruntal & Co. and Dominick & Dominick, Inc. Patricia earned her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Maine and holds FINRA Series three, seven, 24, 55 and 63.

Stephanie Libien is a Managing Director at Jefferies based in the San Francisco office. Ms. Libien joined Jefferies in 2009 to help develop and market electronic trading services on the West Coast. Today, she continues to market electronic trading services and heads the Equities West Coast region. Prior to joining Jefferies, Ms. Libien worked in electronic trading sales at UBS. She started her career at Bloomberg where she focused on sell-side order management system sales. Ms. Libien earned a BA Honors in French from Vanderbilt University where she ran track and cross country.

Stephanie Minister is Managing Director of Connectivity Services at LiquidityBook (a leading SaaS-based provider of buy- and sell-side trading solutions), where she joined in March 2021. She leads a newly created arm of the firm’s corporate structure. Mrs. Minister focuses on development efforts for LBX Connect, LiquidityBook’s proprietary managed FIX network, which enables users to interact with over 250 routing destinations across 80 markets globally in an intuitive and cost-effective manner. She works with exchanges, third-party network providers and institutional brokers in markets across the world to maximize network’s reach. Previously, she spent over 15 years at ITG and, following its 2019 acquisition, Virtu Financial. Initially in algorithmic sales, she later transitioned into the role of Global Vendor Manager. In 2019, Mrs. Minister assumed oversight for Triton EMS algo plugin integration and recently took on responsibility for Canadian client onboarding and support services.
Over her 29-year career, Mrs. Minister has amassed expertise and skill in institutional equity and electronic trading solutions, with previous roles at Instinet, the Boston Stock Exchange and Bridge Information Systems. Mrs. Minister is a current member of the Boston Security Traders Association (BSTA) and a former member of Security Traders Association of New York (STANY). She served on the BSTA board for six years, becoming President in 2018. She has been involved in the STA Women in Finance (WIF) committee since its inception and serves as its Boston spokesperson. Mrs. Minister holds a B.S. from Manhattan College and an M.S. from Boston College. She has also completed several classes toward her certificate in Project Management from Northeastern University. Since 2011, Mrs. Minister has been proud to sit on the board of the United States Foundation for the Children of Haiti (usfch.org). She resides in Norwell, Massachusetts with her husband and daughter.

Tyler Platte is currently Director of Sales at Themis Trading, an independent, no-conflict institutional agency broker specializing in high touch electronic and program trading, market structure, and regulatory commentary since 2002. Mr. Platte brings over 20 years of experience on the buy-side implementing both quantitative and fundamental portfolio decisions focus on best execution. Prior to Themis, he was the Director of Global Equity Trading at Rainer Investment Management, a traditional long only investment manager with peak AUM of $17 billion. Mr. Platte was also a trader with Westpeak Global Advisors, a quantitative investment manager in Boulder, CO and started his career at Scudder, Stevens, & Clark in Boston, MA. Additionally, Mr. Platte has served as the President of both the Seattle Security Traders (SSTA) and Denver Security Traders (DSTA) affiliates.

Inessa Ruffman currently serves as Managing Director – Head of Risk at JonesTrading Institutional Services LLC and is based in Los Angeles area. In this role, Mrs. Ruffman is responsible for overseeing and developing the risk framework for the company. She works closely with trading, compliance, IT and operations to identify exposures and manage risk for the firm and its customers. Mrs. Ruffman started her career as an analyst at Merrill Lynch in 2007 in New York City. During her 10 years with Bank of America Merrill Lynch she held various roles within different departments. She has worked in the Client Market Data Department, Compliance Department, ETF’s and most recently, the Electronic Equity/Derivatives Sales Trading Desk. She was responsible for risk management, market access and trading supervision of quant DMA clients. In addition to her professional responsibilities, Mrs. Ruffman was actively involved in Global Banking and Markets Women’s Leadership Council where she served as Chair of the Welcoming Committee. She completed Women in Leadership Certificate Program from Cornell University. She currently serves on “Wall Street Invest in Hope,” St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital charity committee. Previously she served as STALA committee member. Mrs. Ruffman received her BBA from Baruch College Zicklin School of Business in New York City majoring in Finance and Investments. She holds the Series 4, 7, 55, and 24 as well as the IIROC Certified Trader industry licenses.

Paula Sexsmith is located in Calgary Alberta where she is currently the Head Trader and Manager of Operations at Viewpoint Investment Partners, a boutique investment management firm. With over two decades of industry experience, Ms. Sexsmith’s areas of strength are in global equity, derivative and forex trading, also compliance and operations.

Ms. Sexsmith’s love of the industry led to her extracurricular activities which include founding and being President of the Prairie Securities Traders Association, Chairman of the Canadian Security Traders Association and a member of the Alberta Securities Commission’s Market Advisory Committee.

Kevin Skarbek is the Head equity trader at G1X/SIG. He has more than 20 years of experience in the industry working on the trade desk. Mr. Skarbek is involved in the trading, sales and execution services with many of his retail clients across the Capital Market division. Mr. Skarbek has been a member of the Security Traders Association of Chicago (STAC) for 19 years, and was recently STAC President in 2020. He is currently the STAC scholarship President.

Elizabeth Traster has over 20 years’ experience in the financial services and investment industry. She currently trades Investment Grade Corporate Bonds for Wells Fargo Advisors and is based in St Louis, MO. Ms. Traster’s previous experience includes trading Government Agencies, Structured Products, and Corporate Floating Rate securities. She is currently the Treasurer of Security Traders Association of St. Louis.   Ms. Traster graduated from Vanderbilt University, cum laude, with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Spanish. She holds the Series 7, 24, 57, and 63 licenses.

Len Amoruso has nearly 30 years of financial industry experience, specifically in the legal, compliance and regulatory policy arenas. From 1989-1999, he was with the New York District office of FINRA, having served as Chief Counsel and, subsequently, Deputy Director. After FINRA, he spent more than 14 years at Knight Capital Group, Inc. — initially, as Chief Compliance Officer of its broker-dealer, and subsequently as General Counsel for the parent public company — managing the firm’s legal, compliance, internal audit, regulatory affairs and government relations.

Upon joining Murphy & McGonigle, Mr. Amoruso has focused his practice on securities compliance, regulation, market structure matters, as well as counseling broker-dealers and financial institutions on a wide array of legal, compliance and regulatory matters – including, regulatory requirements and controls, examinations, investigations, litigation, enforcement proceedings and corporate governance.

He has served on the board of the Nasdaq Exchanges and Direct Edge Exchanges, and is a member of STA’s Regulation & Compliance Committee.

Tom Jordan founded Jordan & Jordan in 1990 and co-founded the Financial Information Forum (FIF) in 1996. From 1985-1990, he was the Managing Director of Knight-Ridder Financial/Americas. Previously, he was the Chairman of Monchik-Weber, a Wall Street consulting and product development firm. He also held development and marketing positions at IBM. Prior to his business career, Mr. Jordan served as an officer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the 1st Cavalry Division and the 1st Infantry Division. Mr. Jordan actively participates in many industry initiatives. He is the Advisory Chair of the Financial Information Forum and a member of the advisory committee of the Consolidated Tape Association (CTA) and the Unlisted Trading Privileges (UTP) plan. He was inducted into the Incisive Media Market Data Hall of Fame and was recognized by FISD with a Lifetime Achievement award. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Knights of St. Patrick. Mr. Jordan holds a BS degree in Mathematics from Saint Peter’s College and a MS in Industrial Administration from Union College in Schenectady, NY.

Cass Sanford supports regulatory and policy making initiatives at OTC Markets Group. Ms. Sanford represents the company on public panels and before industry and regulatory groups, focusing on equity market structure, online capital raising and emerging FinTech and RegTech trends. Prior to joining OTC Markets Group, Ms. Sanford represented issuers, broker-dealers and individuals in securities litigation and in regulatory matters. Ms. Sanford received her J.D. from Hofstra University School of Law and her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College. She is a member of the New York Bar.

Brian Stenson is currently the Primary Equity Trader at FCI Advisors in Kansas City, a role he has served in for nearly six years. Mr. Stenson started his professional career in 1995 as a Middle Office Associate at Jefferies & Co. in Chicago. In 1999, he took a voluntary job transfer to Jefferies’ Dallas office. After several years there, he started at NFJ Investment Group as a Junior Equity Trader. Mr. Stenson has been actively involved with the Security Traders Association, currently serving as president of the Kansas City affiliate. Mr. Stenson resides in Kansas City with his wife and three children.

Dawn Combs is Vice President, Head of Planning & Product Services for Security Traders Association (STA). In this role, Ms. Combs is responsible for managing STA’s Annual Market Structure Conference and other STA National events. She is also responsible for developing and strengthening relationships with current and prospective sponsors of STA. She serves as Committee Director for STA’s Listed Options Committee, which is comprised of a diverse group of industry professionals and executives from within the listed derivatives community. She contributes to the development of STA’s strategic business plan that includes education, membership and STA affiliate services.

Most recently, Ms. Combs was Vice President, Industry Services for The Options Clearing Corporation (OCC) and The Options Industry Council (OIC). Here, she managed marketing and advertising strategy, including OIC’s live seminars, webinars, Internet radio show, YouTube channel and other educational initiatives. In addition, she oversaw all aspects of the Annual Options Industry Conference – the premiere event for top-level management and trading professionals within the options industry. She managed several Financial Advisors Forums in conjunction with the conference.

While at OCC, Ms. Combs also served as Vice President, Corporate Communications, and was responsible for creating various communications pieces including OCC’s Annual Report, which received several Best-in-Class awards from distinguished financial publications and public relations groups during her oversight.

Ms. Combs received a BS in Finance from Northern Illinois University. She also completed SIFMA’s Securities Industry Institute Program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Erin Kelly is Assistant Vice President & Director of Communications for Security Traders Association (STA), where she manages communications and relationships with both external audiences and affiliates to uphold STA’s brand presence within the greater financial and regulatory spaces.

With a background in financial and product marketing, Erin’s prior roles include Assistant Product Marketing Manager at DriveWealth, a B2B fintech providing API-based investment solutions for U.S. and global users. In this role, she collaborated regularly across teams on an array of marketing campaigns, with a focus on expanding the firm’s media presence and communicating new product launches to 100+ global partners and beyond. While at DriveWealth, she also lead several firmwide community and charitable events.

Erin also previously served as a Media Relations Associate at Forefront Communications, a capital markets branding and marketing agency, where she assisted in media strategy for a variety of institutional fintech clients.

Erin received her BA in Economics from Iona University.