Jeffrey C. Sprecher
CEO of Intercontinental Exchange
Education
- Bachelor's degree in chemical engineering - University of Wisconsin–Madison
- Master of Business Administration - Pepperdine University
Overview
Jeff Sprecher is the Founder, Chair and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE: ICE).
Sprecher's first job was at Trane, where he met William Prentice who was developing power plants following deregulation. Prentice offered him a job at Western Power Group in 1983.
The Energy Policy Act of 1992 passed and deregulation in the electric industry began. Those working in the "electric industry realized the need for real-time, continentwide transactions", made possible by "Continental Power Exchange" technologies whereby "individual businesses and consumers may one day be able to select an energy provider in the same way that individuals shop for long-distance telephone service."
In 1996 he bought the Continental Power Exchange in Atlanta from MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company for $1 plus the assumption of debt, which became the foundation for Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).
In the 1990s energy trading was handled manually by "Continental Power Exchange, an electronic energy trading company. By 1997 Continental Power Exchange CPEX had "a federated software structure in place, CPEX... ready to expand to more servers as growth demands. CPEX's hardware and server architecture [were] capable of supporting foreseeable changes that may be necessary when the client load arrives. Continental [intended] to stay at least one step ahead of the marketplace."
Sprecher started Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) in 2000 as an online marketplace for energy trading in Atlanta.
Shortly after the company approached Enron to be a client, Enron started its own competing electricity trading platform, which dominated the market. Enron's market model was to buy from every seller and sell to every buyer. Wall Street bankers, particularly Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley backed him and he launched ICE in 2000 (giving 80 percent control to the two banks who, in turn spread out the control among Shell, Total, and British Petroleum). When Enron's exchange collapsed in 2001 in the Enron scandal, ICE's business exploded.
Early Life
Jeff Sprecher was born on 23 February 1955 in Madison, Wisconsin, United States
Career
- Intercontinental Exchange - CEO