TradeStation CEO John Bartleman To Reveal Trading Trends At Benzinga's Fintech Event: 'You Have To Listen To Your Customers'

John Bartleman is the CEO of TradeStation Group – the company behind TradeStation, a popular online trading platform.

Among other prominent financial industry leaders, Bartleman will participate at Benzinga's Fintech Deal Day event in NYC on Nov. 13. He will discuss "Future-Proofing Trading: Embracing Innovation and Trends for Success."

Bartleman's career at Trade Station Group goes back to 1999, when he joined as a product manager. Before becoming CEO, he served in several managerial roles, including vice president of Product Management, chief growth officer, and vice president of Brokerage Operations (2012-2016), as well as TradeStation Securities' president (2015-2017) and vice president of Product Management (2009-2014).

He has a bachelor's degree in International Relations from Florida International University and an MBA from Nova Southeastern University.

From Floppy Disks to Crypto

Reflecting on his company’s rich history, Bartleman noted turning points along the way.

"When I joined TradeStation, we were shipping diskettes and just going to CDs, which was a big advancement. We acquired a company based in Dallas that had an online web distribution model and took our product online. We also acquired an online broker-dealer here in South Florida and really shifted our business model," he said in an interview with Refresh Miami, acknowledging the importance of acquisitions that transformed the company into a broker-dealer business.

The acquisition by the Japanese Monex Group in 2011 opened doors to success in that market, as Monex has over two million accounts.

After becoming president of the group in 2016, Bartleman started targeting younger audiences, creating better user experiences and focusing on web and mobile technologies.

He also pushed for an expansion into crypto.

"From 2017 to 2019, we developed our first product and went to market with a standalone crypto web and mobile interface with five cryptos to start. We do crypto lending, which enables us to pay our customers interest on their crypto balances as an added feature to having a TradeStation Crypto account," he said.

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Growth Through Partnerships

Bartleman acknowledges customer satisfaction as one of the focus points in his strategy.

"You have to listen to your customers. We have a really high touch relationship with our customers so that we can understand their needs," he noted.

This year, the company announced integration with Unusual Whales, an option flow platform and information service. Thus, TradeStation is the first major U.S. multi-asset class broker-dealer integrated into the Unusual Whales platform.

This integration allows users to access the market and trade within Unusual Whales’ suite of tools, providing real-time data and tracking of completed options trades.

"By collaborating with Unusual Whales, we are expanding the tools available to support our goal of providing traders the ultimate trading experience," Bartleman stated, reaffirming his stance to make markets more accessible and transparent for retail traders.

Meet and engage with transformative Digital Asset and Crypto business leaders and investors at Benzinga's exclusive event — Future of Digital Assets. Tickets are flying — get yours!

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