2017 Sullivan Award Winner Gina McFadden Looks Back at a Long and Lively Career

At this year’s Options Industry Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, Gina McFadden received the 2017 Joseph W. Sullivan Options Industry Achievement Award, the first woman to do so since the award began in May 2002.

McFadden, the former president of the OIC, joined the company about a year after it first got off the ground, so she was involved with its early growth, developing the organization’s first advertising campaign.

“It was marketing and education, and it was for a great reason. But it was work to get it off the ground,” she said.

The options exchanges were of course competitors, but the OIC represented one time they came together to achieve something as an industry, McFadden said. And it helped that OCC managed the process.

McFadden said she was surprised and humbled by receiving the Sullivan Award. She was well aware of the industry giants who have received it in the past – people like Bill Brodsky, Sandy Frucher, Ed Joyce, and David Krell, just to name a few – because she was involved in the selection process for many years.

“I think [the options markets] are going to continue to grow,” McFadden said. “It’s such a great product, it’s so versatile and can be used in so many ways by so many different users. And I think there is still teamwork and camaraderie out there.”