The executive leadership team for the Dallas-based TXSE Group has been announced and is composed of veteran professionals in market structure, regulation, and corporate governance.

TXSE Group announced in June that it plans to launch the Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE), focusing on enabling U.S. and global companies to access U.S. equity capital markets. At the time of the initial announcement, the Wall Street Journal reported that the TXSE Group is “aiming to take on what they see as onerous regulation at the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq,” with a goal to begin handling trades in 2025 and to host its first listing in 2026.

The TXSE Group said it’s now ready to highlight the experienced platoon of leaders it has assembled. 

“We’re thrilled to have such a talented group of business, market structure, and policy leaders on our team,” James Lee, founder and CEO of TXSE Group, said in a statement. “These individuals have tremendous expertise in the markets as well as broader experience building and leading companies that have propelled their industries. Their perspectives will be invaluable as we position TXSE for success now and for the next generation.”

The team has played an instrumental role in shaping the Texas Stock Exchange as it works to revitalize competition for issuers, establish the premier venue for listings, and create a world-class trading platform for all market participants, TXSE said.

Key standout leaders

TXSE industry veterans Cam Smith and Jeff Brown will be among TXSE’s top executives.

Smith has spent decades at the intersection of trading, regulation, compliance, and innovation and serves as TXSE’s global head of trading and co-president. Brown was acting general counsel at Charles Schwab and serves as general counsel of TXSE Group Inc and chief regulatory officer of the exchange.

TXSE’s corporate listings team is led by Nicole Chambers, who covered the Texas market for Nasdaq for nearly 17 years, and Jeff Karcher and Marc Cunningham, who covered the southeast U.S. and Texas during long careers with the New York Stock Exchange.

TXSE said it intends to drive innovation and efficiency for investors and to lead that effort, Rick Yoder joined TXSE as chief technology officer after serving as director of software development at Intercontinental Exchange Data Services.

Exchange veterans Jonathan Ross and Adrian Falcone are lead architect and developer and head of technology operations, respectively. Ross previously was chief technology officer at Nasdaq, and Falcone’s experience includes a tenure as technical operations engineer at the Members Exchange.

Also, Bob Kenny serves as senior software developer after working in data services and development at Nasdaq and Intercontinental Exchange.

Board members

TXSE Group said its board of directors includes well known Texas business leaders such as Tom Long, co-chief executive of Energy Transfer, and Paul Foster, who founded Western Refining and oversaw its growth into a Fortune 200 company. Foster currently is the founder and chief executive of Franklin Mountain Investments. Tyson Tuttle, former chief executive of semiconductor manufacturer Silicon Labs (NASDAQ: SLAB), also serves on the board.

The board also includes the longest-serving governor of the state of Texas, Rick Perry, who also served as U.S. Energy Secretary. Rick Roberts, a former commissioner at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and Alex Bussandri, global head of strategy at Citadel Securities, sit on the board as well. BlackRock Vice Chairman Mark McCombe is a board observer.

TXSE Group said it’s also supported by “seasoned market and policy experts” serving as strategic advisors.

Richard Fisher, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, leads the Texas Stock Exchange Listing Standards and Governance Advisory Council, a group of Wall Street experts. Brett Redfearn, former director of the SEC’s division of trading and markets, brings deep technical and regulatory knowledge to inform the development of TXSE’s ruleset. Securities industry experts Harvey Cloyd and Alex Goor leverage their experience building exchange infrastructures to shape TXSE’s growth. Public affairs expert Bill Lauderback advises TXSE’s relationships with key stakeholders.

Members of the TXSE leadership team

‍Per the TXSE Group, here are more details about the members of its leadership team:

Jeffrey Brown, General Counsel, TXSE Group Inc and Chief Regulatory Officer, Texas Stock Exchange: Before TXSE, Brown was acting general counsel of Charles Schwab and led its Office of Legislative and Regulatory Affairs in Washington, D.C. for the past two decades, managing the company’s response to public policy initiatives and advocating for policies that aid individual investors. He has over four decades of securities markets experience, starting his career as an options trader at the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, then founding his own trading firm, and later serving on the exchange’s board of governors. He also served as senior counsel in the Division of Market Regulation at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Jeff’s additional experience in the securities industry includes serving as vice president for regulation and general counsel at the Cincinnati Stock Exchange and as chairman of the Operating Committee of the National Market System Plan governing Nasdaq securities. Jeff holds degrees from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Ohio Northern School of Law.

‍Alex Bussandri, Director: Bussandri is the global head of strategy at Citadel Securities, a leading market maker. Prior to that, he was a director in Bain Capital’s special situations fund, based in London. He was previously a partner at McKinsey & Company in the firm’s private equity and financial services practices. He began his career as an FX and rates trader.

‍Nicole Chambers, Global Managing Director of Listings, Texas Stock Exchange: Chambers brings nearly 17 years of extensive experience collaborating with public and private companies across the United States. Previously, she served as senior managing director, listings at Nasdaq. In that capacity, she played a key role in driving the growth and development of Nasdaq’s listings and services, forging strategic partnerships throughout every stage of the capital markets lifecycle. Chambers is a graduate of Southern Methodist University.

Harvey Cloyd, Strategic Advisor: Cloyd is a securities industry veteran who has served as a pioneer in high frequency clearance and settlement, digital asset custody, and risk management. Previously, he was the founder and chief executive officer of Electronic Transaction Clearing (ETC) and its affiliate companies. ETC was a preeminent U.S. brokerage and clearing firm that provided clearing and settlement services to introducing brokers, ATSs, and high-volume proprietary trading firms. On average, ETC routinely cleared the equivalent of 6 percent of U.S. equity daily share volume and was the first U.S. broker-dealer to custody digital securities and cryptocurrencies. ETC was acquired by Peak 6 in 2019. During his tenure at ETC, Cloyd co-founded Keystone Capital, an institutional brokerage firm that was acquired by Coinbase in 2018. Before ETC, he was vice president and business development manager for Wedbush Morgan Securities and founded Harvey Cloyd & Co., the first direct-access institutional floor broker in the U.S. He started his career as a floor broker on the Pacific Stock Exchange for Pershing & Co. Cloyd also is the founder of Alive Energy, an energy drink company, serves as an advisor to Sport Source, and is on the board of directors at Crenshaw Christian Center.

‍Marc Cunningham, Global Managing Director, Texas Stock Exchange: Cunningham is a seasoned financial executive with over 25 years of experience in capital markets, business consulting, investor relations, corporate finance, investment banking, and equity research. Prior to joining TXSE, he was regional head of capital markets, based in Houston, at the New York Stock Exchange. In that capacity, he led all capital market activities across multiple sectors in the central U.S. and advised private companies on IPOs, SPAC business combinations, transfers, and listing planning and execution. He previously served as head of energy and industrial capital markets at NYSE, advising executive teams of some of the highest profile IPOs in the energy and industrial sectors. Before NYSE, Cunningham led strategic communications for capital markets at FTI Consulting and held finance, business development, and investor relations roles at several energy companies, including Shell, Anadarko Petroleum, and Noble Energy. Earlier in his career, Cunningham worked in equity research and investment banking at RBC Capital Markets and Lehman Brothers. ‍

Adrian Falcone, Head of Technology Operations, Texas Stock Exchange: Falcone has more than 25 years of experience working in the electronic trading space and building real-time operations systems. Previously, Falcone was senior director, production operations at Interactive Data Corporation (IDC). He also served in several operations development roles at MEMX, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Madison Tyler LLC, Barclays, Nasdaq, Instinet, and Island ECN. ‍

Richard Fisher, Strategic Advisor: Fisher served as the 12th president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas from 2005 to 2015 and was at the forefront of the debate over banking regulation. He began his career in finance at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. and founded Fisher Capital Management and a separate funds-management firm, Fisher Ewing Partners. He is also former vice chairman of Kissinger McLarty Associates, a strategic advisory firm chaired by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Fisher worked as special assistant to the U.S. Treasury Secretary from 1977 to 1979, and then was deputy U.S. trade representative in the late 1990s. He currently serves on the board of Tenet Healthcare and Warner Brothers Discovery and is a senior advisor to Jefferies.
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Paul Foster, Director: Foster is the founder and chief executive officer of Franklin Mountain Investments LLC, a diversified investment company with interests spanning real estate, energy, private equity, construction, aviation, sports, medical devices, and hospitality. He was founder and chief executive officer of Western Refining, which was a Fortune 200 oil refiner and marketer sold to Andeavor (formerly Tesoro) in 2016. Andeavor is now part of Marathon Petroleum Corp. Currently, Foster is a member of the board of trustees of the Baylor College of Medicine and the board of directors of WestStar Bank, and a member of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission. Previously, he was chairman of the board of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), vice chairman and chairman of the University of Texas System Board of Regents, and as chairman of the University of Texas Investment Management Co. He is a past director of the El Paso branch of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank. A philanthropist, Foster has extensively supported educational and community initiatives, including through major contributions to Baylor University and the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center.‍

Alex Goor, Strategic Advisor: Goor has more than 20 years of experience building electronic financial markets. Previously, Goor was the chief information officer of Interactive Data Corporation (IDC) prior to its sale to ICE/NYSE. At IDC, he created the technical capability to provide real-time pricing for millions of global fixed income securities. Before joining IDC, Goor was co-president and then co-chief executive officer of Instinet, an institutional agency brokerage servicing the largest global asset managers. He also served as the chief strategy officer of Datek Online Holdings Corporation. He is an advisor to Blue Flame AI, Sporttrade, Upper90 and a director of Voyant Photonics. He was a board member of ACA Compliance Group, GAIN Capital, Insurity, and Dealogic.‍

Jeff Karcher, Global Managing Director, Texas Stock Exchange: Karcher brings more than three decades of experience in U.S. equity markets and international equity research. Prior to joining TXSE, he spent nine years leading the listings business at the New York Stock Exchange in the southeast. He joined NYSE in 2015 after spending almost 30 years working in the institutional equity business in a variety of business development, research management and product development roles at RBC Capital Markets, Deutsche Bank and Paine Webber. Karcher has his CETF certification and has been active in the Atlanta regional business community as a member of the board of directors of FinTech Atlanta and NIRI Atlanta Chapter and as a member of the Metro Atlanta Chamber’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Committee. ‍

Bob Kenny, Senior Software Developer, Texas Stock Exchange: Kenny has more than three decades of experience in software engineering and data services. Prior to joining TXSE, Kenny was post trade lead developer at Hudson River Trading. In this role, he was the development manager of the firm’s post trade system that managed the storage of all trading data, broker data, and commissions rules. Before joining Hudson River Trading, Kenny held leadership roles in software development at Intercontinental Exchange, Nasdaq, Instinet, and Island ECN. ‍

Bill Lauderback, Strategic Advisor: Lauderback is a veteran public affairs professional with a deep knowledge of Texas. He served for eight years as executive vice president for public affairs at the Texas Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA), where he played a crucial role in shaping and communicating the organization’s public policy and strategic initiatives. He also brings over three decades of corporate affairs experience, holding prominent roles such as senior advisor at Hill+Knowlton Strategies and executive vice president of corporate affairs at Momentum Securities/E*TRADE Financial Corporation, where he played an integral role in transforming the startup into one of the nation’s highest volume electronic trading operations. Earlier, Lauderback was vice president for governmental affairs of the Texas Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association. He has also held senior roles in both federal and state government. At the U.S. Department of Energy, he was deputy assistant secretary for gas and petroleum technology, and he served as executive director of the Texas Department of Commerce and as special assistant to the Governor of Texas.
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James Lee, Chairman, founder, and CEO, TXSE Group Inc: Lee has 30 years of experience in U.S. equity markets, alternative investments, and governance of large public retirement systems and endowments. He co-founded trading technology companies that developed early smart order routing technologies and an electronic trading firm that regularly transacted large percentages of U.S. daily equity volume. He started his career in mergers and acquisitions at First Boston and Lehman Brothers. Lee has held several leadership roles in the public sector, including as chairman of the board of trustees of the Teacher Retirement System of Texas. Lee was named an EY Entrepreneur of the Year in eServices and is the chairman and president of the Houston Symphony Endowment. ‍

Tom Long, Director: Long is a distinguished financial executive who currently serves as co-chief executive officer of Energy Transfer LP, owner and operator of one of the largest and most diversified portfolios of energy assets in North America. He was previously chief financial officer of Energy Transfer and has been a member of its board of directors since April 2019. Long brings more than three decades of experience in the energy and financial sectors, including as executive vice president and chief financial officer of Regency GP LLC. He also served in several executive positions at Matrix Service Company, DCP Midstream Partners, LP, and Duke Energy Corp. He was appointed by Gov. Abbott to the Texas State University System Board of Regents in May 2023 and has served on the board of directors of Texas Capital Bancshares, Inc since 2022. He also serves as chairman of the board of directors of USA Compression Partners, LP and previously was on the board of Sunoco LP. ‍

Mark McCombe; McCombe is vice chairman at BlackRock, where he oversees key client relationships and strategic initiatives. McCombe’s career in international finance spans more than 30 years and nine countries, and his roles have included chief client officer and head of the U.S. and Canada region at BlackRock. Before BlackRock, McCombe served as chief executive officer of HSBC Global Asset Management in both Hong Kong and London. He was also a non-executive director of Hang Seng Bank Ltd. and chairman of HSBC Global Asset Management (HK) Ltd. Prior to that, he was based in London where he was chief executive of HSBC Global Asset Management. During his career, McCombe has served on a number of finance industry bodies including the Risk Management Committee of the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited, the Banking Advisory Committee for the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the Hong Kong Association of Banks, and as a council member of the Financial Services Development Council (FSDC), an advisory body established by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
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Honorable Rick Perry, Director: Perry is a longtime American politician known for his extensive public service. He served as the 14th U.S. Energy Secretary from 2017 to 2019, overseeing America’s rise to become the top producer of oil and gas in the world. Prior to this role, Perry was governor of Texas, holding office from 2000 to 2015, making him the longest-serving governor in Texas history. During his tenure, he championed pro-growth principles that made Texas one of the largest economies in the world and oversaw the relocation of hundreds of millions of dollars in private sector business and thousands of jobs to Texas. He remains active in public policy and advocacy, currently serving as the chair of the Center for Energy & Environment at the America First Policy Institute​. He is also a member of the board of directors of Energy Transfer LP. Before his political career, he served as a C-130 pilot in the U.S. Air Force and attained the rank of captain.‍

Brett Redfearn, Strategic Advisor: Redfearn is the former director of the Division of Trading and Markets at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and played a critical role in the agency’s efforts to modernize the National Market System. He has held key roles in finance and market structure throughout his career, serving as global head of market structure at J.P. Morgan, senior vice president at the American Stock Exchange, and senior managing director at Bear Stearns & Co. Redfearn was also a member of the boards of the BATS Global Markets, BATS Exchange, Chicago Stock Exchange, and BIDS Trading. Most recently, Redfearn is the founder and chief executive officer of Panorama Financial Markets Advisory, a leading consultancy dedicated to navigating the complexities of financial markets.

Rick Roberts, Director: Roberts is a former commissioner at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, serving from 1990 to 1995. Currently, he is a co-founder and principal at RR&G, a regulatory and legislative consulting firm. He previously was a partner at the law firm of Thelen, Reid & Priest in Washington, D.C. Over the years, Roberts has advised clients on significant regulatory initiatives and developments.‍

Jonathan Ross, Lead Architect and Developer, Texas Stock Exchange: Ross has more than 20 years of experience in the electronic trading industry, with expertise in M&A, change management, and technology modernization. Before joining TXSE, Ross was the chief technology officer at KCG Holdings Inc., where he led the successful technology merger of Getco LLC with Knight Capital, creating one of the largest and most influential fully electronic trading firms. Prior to this, he served as the chief technology officer at Getco LLC, where he spearheaded the firm’s client services expansion both in the U.S. and Europe. His efforts were pivotal in modernizing trading systems and ensuring seamless technology integration during mergers and acquisitions. Earlier in his career, Ross served as the chief technology officer at Nasdaq, where he managed the integration of Island ECN’s technology through two M&A cycles. He was named in the top five of Institutional Investor’s Trading Technology 40 from 2013 to 2016 and was listed among the Financial News’ 100 Most Influential People in European Market Structure in 2012 and 2013.

‍Cameron Smith, Global Head of Trading and Co-President, Texas Stock Exchange: Smith is an industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience working at the intersection of trading, regulation, compliance, and innovation. Smith began his career working in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Market Regulation. He then served as a key member of the team at Island ECN — which became part of Nasdaq — where he was general counsel and chief strategy officer. Smith was also general counsel of Instinet, a global agency broker, and chief strategy officer of its subsidiary, INET ATS. He later served as president of Quantlab Financial, a leading global, multi-asset class trading firm. Most recently, Smith was director of special projects and strategic relationships at Inca Digital. He founded the Modern Markets Initiative and was a board member of BATS, CHI-X Global, and the Cincinnati Stock Exchange. ‍

Tyson Tuttle, Director: Tuttle is founder and chief executive officer of Circuit, an innovative AI startup building the world’s most trusted knowledge network that empowers people, communities, and organizations to focus on what matters most. He currently serves on several prestigious boards, including the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering, and Austin Monitor. Prior to Circuit, Tuttle was president and chief executive officer of Silicon Labs where he led the company’s transformation from a semiconductor component supplier into a global leader in silicon, software, and solutions for Internet of Things (IoT). He spearheaded five internal startups during his tenure, driving annual revenue beyond $1 billion and earning widespread global recognition. Tuttle announced his retirement from the company at the end of 2021 after Silicon Labs completed the sale of the legacy infrastructure and automotive product lines to Skyworks Solutions for $2.75 billion. Previously, Tuttle worked at Broadcom and Cirrus Logic. ‍

Rick Yoder, Chief Technology Officer, Texas Stock Exchange: Yoder is a seasoned technology leader with over 20 years of experience in the financial technology industry. Before joining TXSE, he was director of software development at Intercontinental Exchange Data Services, where he spearheaded major projects that transformed the delivery of reference data and evaluated pricing products, including the introduction of continuous evaluated pricing, providing real-time fixed income evaluated prices to clients. Prior to ICE Data Services, Yoder was part of the initial technology team at Virtu Financial, where he was instrumental in building the company’s low-latency high-frequency trading platform. He previously held software development roles at Instinet, Educational Testing Services, Computer Aid, and Mail.com.

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