About the Speaker:
Cees Vermaas
Cees is the Chief Executive Officer of The International Stock Exchange Group Limited, a position he has held since November 2020. With a strong focus on strategy, business development and infrastructure, he is responsible for all aspects of leadership and management of the Company. He aims to work with and create enhanced value for the Group’s stakeholders, including its staff, members, issuers and shareholders.
Cees has more than 25 years’ experience within international financial market infrastructure. He has held senior executive positions within several international exchanges, including CEO of CME Europe Ltd, CEO of Euronext Amsterdam and Head of European Cash Markets for NYSE Euronext. Prior to that, he spent a decade working in IT and programme management roles within leading Netherlands based companies Philips and Delta Lloyd Group.
Cees holds a degree in Business Administration and Industrial Engineering from The Hague University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands.
Session Overview
In this session, Cees Vermaas will share his personal career journey from his studies in the early 1990s to leading major international financial market institutions, including roles at Amsterdam Exchanges (later Euronext), CME Europe, and today as CEO of The International Stock Exchange.
Rather than presenting a linear “success story,” Cees will reflect on the decisions, opportunities, and challenges that shaped his path over more than 25 years in financial markets. He will focus on how careers often evolve in unexpected ways, the importance of learning on the job, stepping outside comfort zones, and developing leadership over time.
The session is aimed at students who are thinking about their future careers and may not yet have a clear plan. The key message: you do not need to have everything figured out early on; curiosity, resilience, and openness to opportunity matter far more than having a perfect roadmap.
