Leadership

Aaron Hantman is a founding partner and CEO of Tourmaline Partners. Since the firm launched in 2011, Aaron has overseen all aspects of the business, growing it into the worldwide leader in the outsourced trading space. Under his direction, Tourmaline pioneered the industry’s supplemental trading model for the largest buy-side firms, and secured a majority investment from Copley Equity Partners in 2020. In addition to his management responsibilities, Aaron was responsible for the supervision, build-out and expansion of Tourmaline’s listed derivatives business.

Prior to co-founding Tourmaline Partners, Aaron built a distinguished 12-year career at Susquehanna International Group (SIG) as the CEO and President of Susquehanna Financial Group, while also holding the position of Global Head of Institutional Sales. During his earlier years at SIG, he served as Head Trader and manager of SIG’s NYSE operations, and began his career in equity derivatives and OTC trading.

Aaron earned his Bachelor of Science in Biology from Yale University.

Dan DiSpigna is a founding partner and COO of Tourmaline Partners. With over 20 years of experience in trading and operations, he built the firm’s operations architecture and currently supervises all settlement processes across the firm’s domestic and international desks.

Prior to co-founding Tourmaline, Dan spent 11 years as a principal at Williams Trading, where he played a leading role in overseeing the firm’s operations. He began his career as an operations clerk at Morgan Stanley.

Dan earned his Bachelor of Science in finance and business administration from Villanova University.

Henry Higdon is a founding partner and Head of Global Equity Trading at Tourmaline Partners. In addition to providing U.S. trading coverage for domestic and internationally domiciled clients, he focuses on the development and supervision of all equity trading activity at the firm. He has more than 15 years of experience in the outsourced trading space, including five years spent in the firm’s London office overseeing the build-out and expansion of its U.K. presence and trading team.

Prior to co-founding Tourmaline, Henry served as a principal at Williams Trading. He began his career at Merrill Lynch in New York as an analyst on both the Equity Capital Markets and US Cash Equity Trading desks.

Henry earned his Bachelor of Arts in economics from Harvard College.

James Conway joined Tourmaline Partners in April, 2022. At Tourmaline Partners, James is responsible for all day-to-day financial operations as well as all regulatory financial reporting and CCA/CSA administration.

Most recently, James was with Siebert Williams Shank & Co, a FINRA-Registered BD. James has a distinguished career as a big 4 CPA with over 20 years of broker-dealer industry experience, including core accounting, tax, financial statement preparation, regulatory reporting, treasury and compliance expertise.

James began his career and earned his CPA while at Ernst & Young in NYC.

James earned his Master of Business Administration in quantitative and corporate finance from NYU and his Bachelor of Arts in accounting and economics from the College of Holy Cross.

Jim Olencki has more than 14 years of broker-dealer experience and has been Chief Compliance Officer with Tourmaline Partners since February 2018. He is responsible for implementing and managing the firm’s Regulatory Compliance Program, maintaining the firm’s books and records, managing all regulatory filings and acting as the liaison for all regulatory interactions. Jim serves on many of the firm’s committees and is the Chairperson for the Environmental, Social and Governance Committee

Jim brings unique value and perspective to compliance from his career in law enforcement. He was appointed to the Greenwich, Connecticut Police Department (GPD) while completing his college studies in business administration, and served 21 years with the GPD. During his tenure, Jim received more than 50 departmental and civilian awards and retired with distinction at the rank of Lieutenant in 2009.

Prior to joining Tourmaline, Jim transitioned to a career in compliance in financial services in 2009 working at Aladdin Capital where he served as Deputy CCO. From 2012 to 2017, Jim served as CCO at BTG Pactual US Capital where he gained international experience.

Jim is nationally certified through the Department of Justice as a defensive tactics instructor through a pilot program instructed by the U.S. Navy SEALs and holds multiple martial arts black belts. Jim was also certified as an Emergency Medical Technician in 1989.

Adam joined Tourmaline Partners as CTO in 2011. Adam has worked in Financial Technologies as a CTO for 20 years. Prior to joining Tourmaline, he served as CTO for the Greenwich Prime Trading Group. He started his career with IBM Global Services leading commercial engagements for Financial and Pharmaceutical sectors.

Adam holds a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from Fairfield University.

Matt has more than 20 years of experience in the financial markets, primarily trading listed equity and index derivatives. He started with Tourmaline on day one and is now Head of U.S. Derivatives, where he leads a team focused on solutions for our global clients’ U.S. options trading needs.

Matt started his career at Susquehanna International Group as a trader in the DJX / DIA pit on the CBOE floor before transitioning to a role facing the buy-side community supporting their option trades through execution and idea generation.

Matt earned a Bachelor of Arts in international business / Japanese from North Central College in Naperville, Illinois.

Andrew is Head of European Business, where he leads a team focused on delivering trading solutions across the EMEA region. He is responsible for overseeing all business activities and driving the firm’s commitment to and delivery of best execution in Europe. He has more than 20 years of experience in financial markets – both in debt and equity.

Prior to joining Tourmaline in 2016, Andrew was a Managing Director at BTIG for almost 8 years. A graduate of the Salomon Smith Barney Training Program in 1999, Andrew started his career in fixed income sales before moving on to equity trading at Citigroup.

Andrew earned his Bachelor of Science (Hons) in accounting and financial management from Loughborough University Business School.

Adrian is Head of Trading for the European business concentrating on covering the firm’s clients and ensuring best execution. Adrian has over 20 years’ experience in financial markets, with experience in equities and equity derivatives.

Prior to joining Tourmaline in 2015, Adrian was a senior trader at BTIG covering institutional clients and working with the event-driven team for five years. Adrian completed the ABN graduate programme and worked on the proprietary trading desk running a $1.5bn trading book at its peak responsible for idea generation and execution. Adrian spent eight years at ABN Amro.

Adrian earned his Bachelor of Science (with First Class Honours) in international securities, investment and banking at the University of Reading.

Tom is Head of Operations for Tourmaline’s European entity and in addition works closely with the Asia operations team. He has over 20 years of experience across numerous areas of banking and finance operations.

Prior to joining Tourmaline in 2016, Tom was an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs in its Prime Brokerage Clearing Services business. Tom began his career at JP Morgan in emerging market operations, where he specialized in fixed income, interest rate swaps and OTC derivatives. Tom continued his career at Goldman Sachs, where he managed teams in London and India responsible for structured derivatives and coupon calculation.

James has over 20 years trading experience with investment banks across equities, derivatives, rates and commodities.

Prior to joining Tourmaline, he ran hedge fund sales and trading desks at JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, with particular focus on pan Asian event driven strategies and share class trading. In previous roles, he worked closely with investment banking advisory teams and ECM on mergers & acquisitions. He has extensive experience in electronic and portfolio trading, as well as blocks and high touch trading.

James earned his Bachelor of Business degree from Monash University.

Chris joined Tourmaline Partners in 2013 to help build our Asia-Pacific Trading from our U.S. headquarters. Chris has more than 25 years of experience in domestic and international trading, with more than half of that spent in the outsourced trading space.

After beginning his career as a position trader at Prudential Securities, Chris joined the long/short equity fund Altair Capital Associates as head trader, focusing on the technology, media and telecom space. He began specializing in Asia-Pacific markets in 2007. Prior to joining Tourmaline, Chris served as Managing Director at Access Global Trading.

Chris’s experience and in-depth understanding of both the developed and emerging APAC markets, along with his deep relationships with local brokers, enhances Tourmaline’s ability to seamlessly execute on behalf of our diverse client base.

Chris earned his Bachelor of Arts in business from the University of Notre Dame.

Lincoln brings exceptional cross-asset buy-side experience to the firm from his previous role at PIMCO Australia, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of Operations for 10 years. He was hired by PIMCO out of State Street, where he managed fund accounting and custody operations for a range of large institutional and boutique hedge fund clients.

Lincoln established and built the Operations department within PIMCO Australia, developing their operational servicing model across all aspects of the investment management operations. He was responsible for setting up the PIMCO equity portfolios in the APAC region, and a member of the PIMCO Australia senior management team with Operations responsibility across equities and fixed interest.

Lincoln left PIMCO in 2017 to earn an MBA at Macquarie Graduate School of Management. He also earned his Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Science in computer science from University of New South Wales, where he focused on financial programming, algorithms and artificial intelligence.

Brett Fischer joined Tourmaline in October of 2021 with more than thirty years of experience in the financial industry. He is a Managing Director overseeing global sales, trading analytics and execution systems.

Prior to joining Tourmaline he served as JP Morgan’s Head of Americas Electronic Equity and Derivative Sales and was also on their Global Equity Management Team. He also held senior positions at ITG Inc. and Hoenig & Co.

Brett earned his Bachelor of Arts in economics from Ithaca College and a Master’s in real estate finance from New York University.

Tim O’Halloran, Managing Director, joined Tourmaline Partners in October 2016. Tim supports Tourmaline’s sales and marketing initiatives and established Tourmaline’s commission management infrastructure, now a core competency of the firm. Through Tim’s efforts Tourmaline has grown their global footprint, achieved double digit revenue growth and driven institutional demand and greater awareness of both outsourced and supplemental trading.

Previously, he was a Co-Founder and Co-President of Westminster Research Associates LLC. Over 23 years at Westminster, Tim shared responsibility for all facets of the business, including P&L, strategy, operations and compliance, and led Westminster’s brokerage relations and independent research initiatives.

Prior to co-founding Westminster Research Associates in 1993, Tim was a Vice President with Lehman Brothers in their Worldwide Equities Group and prior to that with Shearson Lehman Brothers in equity research, where he began his professional career.

Tim speaks at industry conferences and events in both the United States and abroad, and has authored numerous thought pieces on the subjects of independent research, outsourced and supplemental trading, CSAs and commission management.

Tim earned his Master of Business Administration in finance (with Honors) from Fordham University and his Bachelor of Science in business economics from The State University of New York at Oneonta.

Prior to joining Tourmaline, John served as Head of Strategy and Business Development for the Titan Eclipse Fund. After creating the joint venture between Titan Advisors and Flat World Partners, John worked closely with hedge fund manager selection for the fund and coordinated all marketing efforts. John also led the marketing efforts with other Titan funds and vehicles.

Prior to Titan, John served as Managing Director building the research offering at Access Securities. John served as relationships manager for many of the key hedge fund relationships. John was also part of the third-party marketing efforts at the firm.

During his time at Morgan Stanley John led a team that specialized in stock plan services, estate planning for high-net-worth families, corporate cash management and 401k plans for corporate clients and their employees. As Managing Director at Wachovia John led a team of advisors that landed him in the Chairman circle of excellence.

John began his career at Whale Securities where he was National Sales Manager as well as a top producer.

John studied business management at Southern Connecticut State University.

James is a Managing Director in Tourmaline’s Sydney office responsible for trading equities and listed derivatives while helping to develop business in developed and emerging Asia.

James joins Tourmaline with more than 25 years of direct pan-Asian trading experience, seventeen of which were based in the region in Hong Kong and Singapore.

He brings outstanding sell side experience, gained in senior management and trading roles across Citigroup, Nomura and Credit Suisse. This experience further deepens the team’s existing trading experience & relationships across blocks, electronic and high touch. His prior management responsibilities have included running large trading teams in Asia focused on trading China, Delta One, derivatives, cash and electronic execution.

James joined from his role as Co-Head of Equities at Vantage Capital Markets, a regional block trading specialist firm. Prior to VCM, James was Head of Asian Sales Trading for Citigroup based in Hong Kong, Head of ASEAN Sales Trading when based in Singapore and Head of Asian Sales Trading at Nomura Securities. James spent eleven years as Director of Sales Trading with Credit Suisse between Sydney, London and Hong Kong.

James earned his Bachelor of Economics from Newcastle (AU) University; a Graduate Diploma of Finance and Investment from the Securities Institute of Australia and a Graduate Diploma of Financial Planning from Kaplan Australia.