Cboe’s Saroukhanov to take up tokenisation, alternatives role

Saroukhanov announced the move in a LinkedIn post on Sunday. In his new vice president role, he will report to JJ Kinahan, who was hired in October to lead retail expansion and alternative investment products at Cboe.

“I look forward to collaborating with our global teams and partners as we build the next generation of financial market infrastructure,” Saroukhanov (pictured) said in a post.

As part of his previous role, Saroukhanov had been responsible for growing Cboe European Derivatives Exchange (CEDX), the Amsterdam-based venue that it decided to close in January after four years of trying to develop a new regional equity derivatives market.

Cboe launched CEDX in September 2021, with a plan to create an Amsterdam-based rival to local incumbents Euronext and Eurex. The firm has established a highly successful pan-European cash equities exchange, which was unaffected by the closure of CEDX. The derivatives venue officially closed last month.

Saroukhanov, who had spent nearly 17 years overall trading options at Liquid Capital, joined Cboe after a stint at Bloomberg in November 2022. He replaced Ade Cordell who later moved to the Asian business.

Kinahan’s team will be focused on expanding Cboe’s presence in new markets and growing retail adoption.

“Mr. Kinahan will lead Cboe’s newly established business vertical focused on developing alternative investment products for retail customers, helping to oversee product strategy, regulatory alignment, and go-to-market execution for innovative offerings such as event-based trading, prediction markets, crypto derivatives, and tokenized instruments,” Cboe said at the time.

Cboe Global Markets expects to bring new event-style contracts starting the second quarter, executives said on an earnings call last month.

Speaking to FOW earlier this year, Hocking said the initial rollout will focus on Cboe’s strength in the equity index options space – with more than 200,000 zero-day-to-expiry options trading on the most liquid US index benchmark a day according to exchange figures.