Gerard Colagrossi and Eli Tullis Jr. have joined Fortis Clearing Americas (USA) LLC, a division of Fortis Merchant Banking, as senior vice presidents.
Their brief is to lead the newly established 24-hour futures execution desk at Fortis. Based in Chicago, Colagrossi and Tullis will report directly to Mark Cermak, Executive Vice President of execution services at Fortis Clearing Americas.
“The addition of Gerard and Eli to our expanding team of futures industry experts positions Fortis well to capitalize on current market opportunities in this space,” says William Floersch, President and Chief Executive Officer of Fortis Clearing Americas. “Their more than 55 years of combined experience in the futures industry will help us to better meet the needs of commodity trading advisors and hedge fund clients as we continue to expand our global footprint and service offering.”
Colagrossi previously established the 24-hour execution desk at MF Global (formerly Man Financial) and later managed the execution desk at ABN AMRO and UBS. In each of those positions, he was responsible for expanding the client base and working with commodity trading advisors (CTAs) and hedge funds by offering value-added services for clients.
Tullis has been I the futures industry for more than 30 years. Beginning his career on the New York Cotton Exchange, he quickly became an independent trading member and, by 1981, had founded his own clearing firm. From 1982 to 1988, Tullis traded for a select client group at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and traded his own account on the CME through 2000. He created Tullis Management LLC in 1999 and through this entity, has acted as general manager for several funds.