As a civil rights lawyer, securities lawyer, CPA, and former military officer, Joe Cecala has not only developed an expertise in securities compliance, corporate finance, and accounting, but he has also become a visionary leader, passionate about effecting positive, lasting change in society. In the late 1990’s, he was legal counsel for the entity that created Archipelago, one of the first companies to trade securities as an electronic communications network (an “ECN”) and was the first open all-electronic stock exchange. This invention grew to become the electronic infrastructure of the New York Stock Exchange.
Over the past 30 years practicing securities law, Joe has applied his knowledge and expertise to help small businesses grow and expand and has conducted over 100 successful capital events.
In the last 5 years, Joe has authored and championed legislation called the Main Street Growth Act, through the United States Congress. In a key role briefing the entire United States Congress on the need for venture stock exchanges, Mr. Cecala garnered unanimous support for this act to increase access to our capital market system.
In 2018, he founded Dream Exchange with the aim of creating the first venture stock exchange in the U.S. He now is in the process of not only this, but also creating the first minority-owned national stock exchange in U.S. history to bring the opportunity for economic prosperity in all communities.
Born on the Westside of Chicago, Dwain’s family moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where his father, Rev. Samuel “Billy” Kyles, became the pastor of Monumental Baptist Church, which he pastored for 55 years. Throughout his childhood, Dwain watched his father evolve as a leader in the civil rights movement, growing up around civil rights icons such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.
Graduating from Georgetown Law School in 1979, he worked in the Corporate Law Department of Johnson Products Company. In 1983, he became Mayor Harold Washington’s Special Counsel for Minority Business Development, working to help small minority business enterprises (“MBEs”) get access to contract opportunities and capital.
During that same period, he became an entrepreneur in the hospitality business and established a law firm, Dwain J. Kyles & Associates, P.C. He has spent the last several decades working to strengthen MBEs across the nation.
In 2020, Dwain partnered with his trusted ally and long-time friend, Joe Cecala, to become Managing Member of DX Capital Partners, to further their joint vision of providing the “great vaults of opportunity of this nation” to people of every creed and color, allowing opportunity to be shared by all, and resulting in prosperity to be shared by all.
James C. Yong counsels self-regulatory organizations, broker-dealers, investment advisors, hedge funds, futures commission merchants and others in the financial services industry in regulatory matters before the SEC, CFTC, State Blue Sky Commissioners, self-regulatory organizations and other regulators. He also litigates securities matters before industry arbitrators and the federal court.
Jim has been serving the financial sector for more than 40 years, having worked in the banking and the securities industries, including options, futures, security futures and equity markets. While in private practice, he helped a client become the second market to be approved by the CFTC as a designated contract market for security futures and another to become one of the ten entities recognized as an Electronic Communications Network (“ECN”) by the SEC. Jim’s practice today focuses on assisting his clients on the regulatory front, including advising clients on how to strengthen their compliance and regulatory programs and defending clients with regulatory issues before federal, state and self-regulatory organizations. Jim has also counseled others in the financial services area, including serving as counsel to the independent directors of the issuer of exchange traded funds as well as counsel to various boards of directors for financial services firms.
In the corporate world, Jim has been appointed as the General Counsel, first with The Options Clearing Corporation and then with the National Stock Exchange. He was also the National Stock Exchange’s first Chief Regulatory Officer and its affiliated broker-dealer’s first Chief Compliance Officer. While representing these self-regulatory organizations, he has been his corporation’s representative on a number of regulatory and industry committees, including acting as the Executive Representative to FINRA, and a voting member of the Intermarket Surveillance Group (including chairing some of its subcommittees), the Securities Industry Committee on Arbitration, the International Organization of Securities Commissioners (“IOSCO”) and the North American Securities Administrators Association (“NASAA”). Mr. Yong has experience in matters involving the development of new products (and their disclosures) with securities and options exchanges; creating rule filings with the SEC; advocating policy concerns of a national stock exchange and clearing firm; resolving legal and operational issues raised by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the SEC, the CFTC, state blue sky commissioners and other regulators.
Jim’s governmental experience includes work as an enforcement attorney with the SEC and externships with the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and with a United States Magistrate for the Northern District of Illinois.
Jigar will be primarily responsible for driving Dream Exchange’s go-to-market strategy.
Jigar is a serial entrepreneur who has founded multiple companies in the FinTech and hedge funds space. With over 30 years of experience in capital markets managing billions of dollars in assets, Jigar has been credited at major firms such as JP Morgan Asset Management, Lehman Brothers, and Aritas for developing transformative technologies to manage risk strategies, high-frequency anti-gaming trading algorithms, and multi-asset portfolio optimization strategies.
As a former entrepreneur himself, Jigar is intimately familiar with the need for a small company initial public offering (IPO) marketplace that fuels innovation and entrepreneurship through access to capital across all diverse sectors of our economy
Jane is an accomplished executive and has senior responsibility for Dream Exchange’s public relations.
A creative executive at heart, Jane has always been passionate about helping organizations elevate their performance and increase their impact. She has executed dozens of successful events, managed celebrity relationships, and public relations for numerous non-profit initiatives and helped dramatically expand the reach of these organizations.
With over 25 years of leadership experience in in various sales and management roles in industries ranging from small and medium size businesses, capital raising, non-profit sectors, retail energy sales and digital sales industries, she has achieved innovation with: sales, business development, strategy development & deployment, small and medium sized businesses, leadership, and operations.
Tellis Williams has over 25 years of experience in Information Technology and Security and holds a CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) certification and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
He is a featured Speaker at numerous Executive Information Security and Information Security conferences and serves on the Secure World Advisory Council. He is an active member of Infragard, a collaborative group of federal and civil Information Security professionals, working to advise the Information Security industry.
He is the Founder and owner of Executive Security Management Essentials, LLC., serving companies as a virtual Chief Information Security Officer, (vCISO). He is an active member of Chicago Area CISO of the Year Program, and was a 2019 nominee for the Chicago Area CISO of the Year.
In addition, Mr. Williams has served as Chief Information Security Officer for AXA Partners, USA, an insurance and financial services organization with offices in 40 countries, and as Senior Security Architect for the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago.
As a software system engineering professional, industry pioneer, and author, Mr. Edwards has conquered challenges presented across the multiple disciplines of computing, creating products to the benefit of millions. Mr. Edwards has taken part in starting the industry founding SCELBI Computer Consulting as programmer and author as well as working with the team that upgraded the Internet through the National Science Foundation network, ushering in the modern Internet age.
For the past 29 years developing computing systems for large computing complexes. Mr. Edwards has developed computing solutions within Financial Services stock markets as Architect and Director over market data dissemination and from without as VP of trading system development at ultra-low latency trading firms.
Always interested in new technologies and the views of others within the computing industry, Mr. Edwards recognizes the human aspect as the paramount purpose of the products being created. Each product benefits people and the environment in which they live, this benefit is the true goal of systems development.
Contributing to the Dream Exchange aligns well with Mr. Edwards’ goals for himself, his family and society at large.
Ioannis (Yianni) V. Floros is an Associate Professor of Finance at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), Lubar School of Business. Yianni is the Dean’s Research Fellow and Head of the Finance Area at UWM. Prior to this position, Yianni was the Dean’s Faculty Fellow in Finance and Associate Professor at Iowa State University. His academic research appears in the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, the Review of Accounting Studies, the Journal of Financial Intermediation, the Journal of Corporate Finance, the Journal of Banking and Finance, the Financial Management and the Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting. Dr. Floros taught undergraduate and graduate courses at the University of Pittsburgh, at Iowa State University, at DePaul University, at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and at Zurich Elite Business School.
During the time period of 2012-2013, Dr. Floros was a Visiting Academic Fellow at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
While working at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Dr. Floros has served as the leading economist in rules related to the JOBS Act (Regulation A+ exemption) and participated in the formation of the economic baseline and the cost-benefit analysis of Dodd-Frank rules (Asset backed securities-risk retention). Dr. Floros also researched fraudulent activities conducted in OTC markets. Prior to joining academia, Dr. Floros has also worked for Accenture S.A. as a senior financial consultant where he was involved in asset & liability management, implementation of integrated treasury systems and data migration projects.
Dr. Floros holds a B.Sc. degree in Economics from University of Piraeus, an M.Sc. degree in Economics and Finance from Warwick Business School and a Ph.D. degree in Business Administration from University of Pittsburgh.
Gustave, a Chicago native, has 25+ years of experience with 4 Fortune 100 firms and non-profit organizations. He has a proven track record of meeting and exceeding performance milestones in Marketing, Public Relations and Sales capacities. In his role as Vice President at the Chicago Urban League, Gus ran the Entrepreneurship Center for over two years overseeing the NextONE business accelerator and helped launch a number of notable businesses in Chicago.
Gus is also a successful entrepreneur in the Financial Services Industry having built a practice in several states; he holds Series 6,63,26, Life and Health Licenses.
Gus also graduated with an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. A former collegiate scholarship athlete and 4-year letterman in football at University of Cincinatti as well and Arizona State University he also enjoys watching and participating in sports activities.
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