Sean O’Connor: Dealing With Risk

Sean O’Connor is the Chief Executive Officer of INTL FCStone. While many CEOs reach the top post after having worked for many years in the company, O’Connor took another path. He earned his spurs at other companies. With his credentials he joined INTL FCStone as CEO in October 2002.

Before becoming the CEO at the company O’Connor was already the CEO (from 1994 until 2002) of Standard New York Securities, a division of Standard Bank. O’Connor was also Executive Director of Standard Bank London, Ltd., from 1999 to 2002. This is a United Kingdom bank and a subsidiary of the Standard Bank of South Africa.

What is unique about INTL FCStone is the company’s market capitalization is below $400 million but it’s one of the largest companies in the US in terms of revenue. In fact other companies close to it in terms of revenue have market capitalization in the $50 billion range.

How the company he runs makes such huge revenues is because it deals with risks and volatility. Due to this O’Connor and his team can also get caught in a bad year. It’s all part of the territory though and O’Connor continues to make the necessary adjustments so that this large commodities brokerage company can get back to its winning ways.