Leo Melamed

One of the most powerful figures in the financial world – Leo Melamed (Leo Melamed) – revolutionized the trade futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. However, like his colleague’s financial genius of George Soros, Melamed first had to take an amazing journey that included slipping away from the Nazis and the Russian to get into the United States. In 1939, he and his family fled from Poland to Lithuania, but when they were there, they needed transit visas to continue the journey. “Even my philosophically minded father – told Melamed – could not explain how you can reduce a person’s life to wait in line a piece of paper, which could mean the difference between life and death.” Crossing Siberia by train, the young Melamed learned my first lesson in strategy – stay calm and focus under fire – for, to his amazement, his father fell into chess, apparently ignoring the chaos around him.