20 Facts About Joe Ritchie

Joseph Jay Ritchie, better known as Joe Ritchie, was an options and commodities trader.

Joe Ritchie later worked as a guard at the Cook County Jail.

In 1976, Joe Ritchie started working the floor of the Chicago Board Options Exchange.

Joe Ritchie left the Chicago Board Options Exchange in 1976, and returned to trading futures at the Chicago Board of Trade.

Joe Ritchie continued trading futures when he started Chicago Research and Trading.

Joe Ritchie founded Chicago Board Crushers, later renamed Chicago Research and Trading, an options and futures trading firm, in 1977.

Joe Ritchie hired traders that were able to think outside the box.

Bud Hunt, former CFO of CRT, told the story of Joe Ritchie eliminating a potential hire based on a quick glance at his resume.

Joe Ritchie sold CRT to Nations Bank in 1993 for $225 million.

Joe Ritchie started Fox River Partners along with Keith Dickson in 1993 after selling Chicago Research and Trading, where he continued investing with the same style and methodology that he used at CRT.

In 2001, Joe Ritchie started Fox River Execution, an agency broker and dealer that provides algorithmic trading technology and execution solutions.

Joe Ritchie put a bid on Eastern Airlines when it was tanking in the late 1990s in an attempt to resurrect the company.

Joe Ritchie began doing business in Russia during the Cold War with creation of a company, Management Partners International or MPI, which became the American partner in the second ever Soviet American Joint Venture - JV Dialogue, founding in 1987 and by 1992 the company had become a network of 110 subsidiaries in various fields ranging from JV Dialogue to Dialogue Bank and real estate and architecture, with nearly 5,000 employees.

Joe Ritchie started working in Japan in 2001 with two brothers, Chris and Brian Oxley.

In 1989, Joe Ritchie committed $30 million of his own cash to buy Eastern Airlines when it was about to go into liquidation due to financial setbacks and strained union relations.

The Joe Ritchie brothers attempted to fill the foreign policy vacuum that had been left by the United States in Afghanistan.

Joe Ritchie was the founding-CEO of the RDB up until 2009.

In 2010, Joe Ritchie met Joyce Banda, then Vice President of Malawi.

Joe Ritchie believed that she had potential to be one of the great leaders of this generation and thus worked with her to gather private sector support.

The late President of Malawi, Bingu wa Mutharika died on April 5,2012, and Joe Ritchie then worked openly with the new president, Joyce Banda.