Jeffrey Sprecher

Jeffrey C. Sprecher (born c. 1955) is an American businessman and is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange and Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange.

Sprecher was born in Madison, Wisconsin, U.S., where he attended James Madison Memorial High School. He was initiated in Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Wisconsin Alpha Chapter. He received a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1978 and an MBA from Pepperdine University in 1984.

Sprecher's first job was at Trane, where he met William Prentice who was developing power plants following deregulation. Prentice offered him a job at Western Power Group in 1983.

Energy Policy Act (1992) passed and deregulation in the electric industry started. Those working in the "electric industry realized the need for real-time, continentwide transactions", made possible by "Continental Power Exchange" technologies whereby "individual businesses and consumers may one day be able to select an energy provider in the same way that individuals shop for long-distance telephone service."

In 1996 he bought the Continental Power Exchange in Atlanta, Georgia from MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company for $1 plus the assumption of debt, which became the foundation for IntercontinentalExchangeICE.

In the 1990s energy trading was handled manually by "Continental Power Exchange, an electronic energy trading company. By 1997 Continental Power Exchange CPEX had "a federated software structure in place, CPEX... ready to expand to more servers as growth demands. CPEX's hardware and server architecture [were] capable of supporting foreseeable changes that may be necessary when the client load arrives. Continental [intended] to stay at least one step ahead of the marketplace."

Sprecher started Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) in 2000 as an online marketplace for energy trading in Atlanta—"a sort of eBay for energy." They sold equity stakes to "big hitters like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley." The idea was to be a "competitor to Enron". "Specher's business model was to provide an electronic marketplace where buyers and sellers could trade directly". When Enron imploded, ICE soared."

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