As chairman of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange from 1998 to 2002, Scott Gordon restructured the 106-year-old futures bourse, transferring ownership from floor traders to public shareholders and paving the way for increased use of its screen-based trading systems.

Now Gordon, 50, finds himself in a position to take advantage of his handiwork. Last month he was named CEO of Rosenthal Collins Group, a venerable Chicago futures brokerage that is hoping to reel in more of the electronic traders that Gordon's modernizing effort helped to create.

"Technology has brought an ever-increasing number of new customers to the futures business," says Gordon. "People used to trading equities electronically are making the transition to trading futures that way. We have a big opportunity."

Gordon's new job is a homecoming for him. He interned at Rosenthal & Co., a predecessor to RCG, while on summer break from Schenectady, New York's Union College in the early 1970s. "I'm coming back to my roots," he says. Gordon served as COO of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Futures after leaving the CME.

Les Rosenthal, RCG's chairman and a former head of the Chicago Board of Trade, has been scaling back his day-to-day duties at the firm. "Scott and I have been friends for a long time," Rosenthal says. "He's a good guy to take the firm to the next level."