Leo Melamed, a Holocaust survivor and author of Man of the Futures, recounts his escape from the Nazis, an odyssey that took two years, spanned three continents, six languages, the Trans-Siberian railroad, and Japan – courtesy of a life-saving transit visa from Japanese Counsel General to Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara.

In 1972, as chairman of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME Group), Leo Melamed revolutionized markets with the creation of the International Monetary Market—the first futures exchange for financial instruments—and the launch of currency futures. In 1987, he revolutionized futures trading again with the founding of Globex®, the world’s first futures electronic-trading system. Twenty years after their inception, Nobel Laureate Merton Miller named financial futures “the most significant innovation of the past two decades.”