Chairman Rostin Behnam

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Chairman Rostin Behnam currently serves as the agency’s 15th Chairman after previously serving as both Acting Chairman and a Commissioner from 2017 through 2021. 

Chairman Behnam focuses on transitioning the CFTC from the rule writing era that dominated its implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act to an agency that moves in lock step within its mandate in addressing the issues presented by the rapidly evolving derivatives markets.  With technology as a predominant driver of change, recognizing new risks and the need to adapt the agency’s oversight responsibilities, Chairman Behnam has worked to implement rules and dedicate resources to enhance risk management and resilience, strengthen customer protections, promote efficiency and innovation, improve reporting and data policy and promote international comity. In addition, Chairman Behnam prioritizes modernizing and updating CFTC’s administration including appointing the first-ever Chief Diversity and Artificial Intelligence Officers, and its first Chief Data Scientist.  

As Chairman, Behnam has prioritized: identifying and addressing regulatory gaps and uncertainty; strengthening the agency organizationally to be an operationally effective, diverse, and competitively attractive employer; better understanding and incorporating the digital asset ecosystem and artificial intelligence (AI) into CFTC decision making; and meeting the need for guidance regarding emerging product and market structures such as voluntary carbon credit (VCC) derivative contracts and vertical integration.

Chaiman Behnam champions the need to address climate-related market risk and the role that derivatives may play as part of the solution to tackling the impacts of extreme weather events and climate change. The Commission finalized the first-ever guidance regarding the listing of voluntary carbon credit (VCC) derivative contracts. Identified as one of the most important developments for the carbon industry, the guidance will aid the industry to manage risk, promote price discovery, and encourage integrity in these markets.  Behnam established the first-ever Climate Risk Unit (CRU) to support the agency’s mission by focusing on the role of derivatives in understanding, pricing, and addressing climate-related risk and transitioning to a low-carbon economy. 

As Commissioner, Behnam sponsored the CFTC’s Market Risk Advisory Committee (MRAC) and advocated for the CFTC to use its authority and expertise to ensure the derivatives markets operate transparently and fairly for participants and customers and innovate responsibly to address evolving market structures and products and the emergence and movement of risk across clearinghouses, exchanges, intermediaries, market makers and end-users within an appropriate oversight framework.  Through his MRAC sponsorship, Chairman Behnam convened leading market experts and public interest groups to engage in public dialogue on such timely issues as global interest rate benchmark reform, central counterparty (CCP) risk and governance, evolving market structures, and since the summer of 2019, climate-related market risk. Chairman Behnam led the creation of the Climate-Related Market Risk Subcommittee to examine climate-related impacts on the financial system, which resulted in the September 2020 release of the report Managing Climate Risk in the U.S. Financial System, the first of-its-kind effort from a U.S. government entity.  

Since first elected in October 2022, Chairman Behnam has served as a Vice Chair of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO).  As Vice Chair and member of IOSCO’s Management Team, Chairman Behnam is part of the core decision-making for IOSCO’s key institutional priorities, goal-setting, stewardship, and accountability, as well as selection of IOSCO leadership roles including the Secretary-General and policy committee chairs and vice chairs.  Through this role, Chairman Behnam also serves as Co-Chair of IOSCO’s joint work with the Bank for International Settlements’ Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI, and the joint work, CPMI-IOSCO), the standard setter that maintains and administers the core international standards for clearinghouses and trade repositories, the Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures.  Chairman Behnam’s roles in the leadership of IOSCO and CPMI-IOSCO have allowed him to work closely with IOSCO’s more than 200 members from 130 jurisdictions in shepherding important advancements of global and US interests on topics including digital assets and stablecoins, operational resilience, derivatives margin, sustainability/carbon markets, and nonbank finance.
Chairman Behnam currently sponsors the CFTC’s Agricultural Advisory Committee (AAC), which plays an integral role in advising the Commission on issues involving agricultural commodity futures and options trading and facilitating communications between the Commission, the agricultural community, and agriculture-related organizations.  

Chairman Rostin Behnam has a long association with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.  Prior to his service at the CFTC, and during the pivotal years following the financial crisis and the massive expansion of the CFTC’s jurisdiction, Chairman Behnam served as Senior Counsel to Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Chairwoman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.  Chairman Behnam’s primary areas of focus included policy and legislative matters related to the CFTC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. Department of the Treasury and various prudential banking regulators, in addition to specific agricultural technology issues within the remit of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Before his CFTC and CFTC-related service, Chairman Behnam resided in his home state of New Jersey where he worked for the Bureau of Securities within the state’s Office of the Attorney General.  Following his time with the Bureau of Securities, Chairman Behnam practiced law in New York City.

Chairman Behnam received his A.B from Georgetown University and worked as a proprietary equities trader before pursuing a Juris Doctorate at Syracuse University.  

Chairman Behnam lives in Baltimore, Maryland with his wife and three children.

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