Faculty Biographies

Michael Gorham

Director, IIT Center for Financial Markets

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Phone: 312.906.6520
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Education

• B.A., University of Notre Dame
• M.S., University of Florida
• Ph.D., University of Wisconsin

Affiliated Programs
M.S. Finance
Ph.D. Program
M.S. Financial Markets

Research Interests

Biography
Michael Gorham is Industry Professor of Financial Markets, Director of the IIT Stuart Center for Financial Markets, and Program Director for the M.S. in Financial Markets at the Stuart School of Business. In addition, he currently serves as a board member of the CBOE Futures Exchange in Chicago and the National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange in Mumbai, India. He serves on the Probable Cause and Business Conduct Committees of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Business Conduct Committee of the National Futures Association, the editorial board of the GARP Risk Review, and the editorial board of Futures Industry. He is also regional director of the Global Association of Risk Professionals for Chicago.

From 2002 through 2004, Mr. Gorham served as the first director of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's new Division of Market Oversight, a division of 100 economists, lawyers, futures trading specialists and others dedicated to the oversight of the nation's 12 futures exchanges. This unit has four major responsibilities: the designation of new exchanges, the oversight of the futures and options contracts traded on those exchanges, the prevention of manipulation in the markets for these futures and options contracts, and the detection and deterrence of trading abuses on the floors of these exchanges.

Prior to the CFTC, Mr. Gorham served as Director of Research and International Development at the Center for Law and Financial Markets at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he taught graduate level courses in financial markets. He was also an international consultant in financial markets and derivatives, working with exchanges, regulators and firms in the U.S., Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. He has been involved with projects to create a stock index futures market in India, establish a commodities market in the United Arab Emirates, evaluate the feasibility of Parmesan cheese futures in Italy, and to modernize financial markets in Egypt. He also served as Managing Editor of the Journal of Global Financial Markets.

Mr. Gorham worked in two key financial institutions: for four years at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and for 18 years at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. As a research economist at the Fed, he wrote papers on such issues as the economics and politics of ocean mining, alternative approaches to Japanese food security, and the price effect of USDA announcements.

At the CME, he served in a variety of capacities, including vice president in the areas of product development, commodity marketing, education, and international marketing. He was also involved with the creation of a comprehensive ethics training program and the creation and marketing of a high profile emerging markets initiative. He frequently represented the Exchange to domestic and foreign media and to foreign governments.

He has written over fifty articles for newspapers, journals and magazines in Argentina, China, Japan, Mexico and the U.S. on a wide range of business and financial issues. He has given talks on derivatives in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Egypt, England, France, India, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, and South Africa. He also served as Treasurer of the non-profit Center for International Performance and Exhibition. During the late 1960s he was a Peace Corps volunteer working on an agricultural modernization project in Malawi, Africa. He holds a BA in English literature from the University of Notre Dame, an MS in food and resource economics from the University of Florida and a Ph.D. in agricultural economics from the University of Wisconsin. He is married to an incredible human being and has two incredible children.