Nancy Laethem Stern is Managing Director and General Counsel of Simplex Trading, LLC a broker-dealer and market maker in equity options. She also serves on the boards of directors of exp Global Inc., an engineering and architectural services firm, and Matrix Executions Holdings, LLC, an agency-only broker-dealer. Ms. Stern was previously Managing Director, General Counsel, and Chief of Staff at ABN AMRO Clearing USA, a broker-dealer and futures commission merchant. She served as CEO, COO and General Counsel at Allston Holdings, a leading PE-backed proprietary trading firm, before leading its successful sale to a strategic buyer. Prior to leadership roles within financial services firms, Ms. Stern spent a combined 17 years at Chicago-based Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP and Gardner Carton & Douglas LLP (now Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP), where she focused on mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance and securities law.

Ms. Stern holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and a Juris Doctor degree, both from the University of Michigan. Following the completion of her law degree, she clerked for the Honorable Robert H. Cleland, U.S. District Judge in the Eastern District of Michigan.

She is active in numerous civic and charitable organizations, including the Chicago Club, the Economic Club of Chicago, the Economic Leadership Council of the University of Michigan, and the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools.