Financial History Issue 124 (Winter 2018) | Page 8

THE TICKER  MUSEUM NEWS Words of Wisdom Excerpts from the Remarks Delivered at the 2018 Museum Gala At the 2018 Museum of American Finance Gala on February 6, the Museum honored Ken Griffin with the Charles Schwab Financial Innovation Award and Timothy Geithner with the Whitehead Award for Distinguished Public Service and Financial Leadership. Excerpts from the remarks delivered that evening are published below in the order in which they were presented. JOE RICKETTS Founder, Former CEO and Former Chairman TD Ameritrade Tonight it’s my privilege to introduce Ken Griffin. And I think most of you, if not all of you, know that Ken is really a bright guy. He’s a talented leader, and he is a great entrepreneur. And his innovative approach to investments has fundamen- tally changed the financial sector. Now, he’s done a lot of things in his life, and I’m not going to go into a long list of accom- plishments that Ken has achieved, but I’d like to tell you about a couple of items. He was raised in Boca Raton, Florida, where IBM had a plant and was building their first personal computer. IBM hired a lot of people from the city, and there was a lot of buzz about what personal computers were going to do to change our lives. And when Ken was 14, his parents offered him a choice. He could go to high school at a private, exclusive school, or he could go to the public school and have a personal computer. He chose the personal computer. I think that tells a lot about his character. Not too many years later, at age 19, while he was a student at Harvard, in 1987, he was trading stocks in his dorm room. 1987 is many, many years ago — technology was not where it is today — so he had to go to the building manager and make arrange- ments to put a dish up on the roof, run the wires down through the elevator shaft, and then down the hall to his room. And I’m going to tell you, probably — prob- ably — he used Ameritrade to make his trades. I’m sure that he used Schwab and Scott Trade sometimes, but I’ll bet it was Ameritrade most of the time. At age 22, Ken started Citadel, and he had some clear thoughts about the combination of trading and technology, and he put them into an idea around air- planes. And quants designed the airplane. The technology people built the airplane. The portfolio managers flew the airplane. And the operation area was the air traffic control. So with those fixed ideas in mind and the efficiency that came with the management, Citadel became a place with very clear data, a better risk management system and more precise models, which gave them a competitive edge. Now, permit me a minute to get on my 6    FINANCIAL HISTORY  |  Winter 2018  | www.MoAF.org soapbox. The world needs entrepreneurs. These are the people who take risks. These are the people who bring innovation to the market. And these are the people who create jobs. And, as I’ve said, Ken is a great entrepreneur. He’s created great value, and he has brought many, many benefits to society. On behalf of myself and my family, it’s my pleasure and my joy to introduce Ken Griffin. KEN GRIFFIN Founder and CEO, Citadel Founder, Citadel Securities Joe, thank you for your very kind intro- duction. I am honored and humbled to follow in your footsteps in receiving the Charles Schwab Financial Innovation Award.