IAM1590 – CEO and Trading Expert Helps Companies Achieve High Rates of Growth

Tony Saliba is the CEO of Liquid Mercury. He is a world-renowned trading expert with more than 4 decades of experience, and his current company is also a major technology provider for digital asset and cryptocurrency markets. He is an internationally renowned business leader, multi-faceted serial entrepreneur, option trading pioneer, master trader and board member of the Chicago Stock Exchange, author, shareholder, operator, and investor in nearly 100 companies.

Tony has been the founding member of key companies in the trading and tech industries such as Efficient Capital Management, International Trading Institute, Liquid Point, Fortify Technologies, and more. He currently maintains a global team of staffers in offices around the US, UK, India, and China helping companies achieve high rates of growth, and identifies initiatives to unlock exponential value.

• CEO Story: Started out as a forex trader on CBOE. With the overarching catching phrase, “Necessity is the mother of inventions”. Tony got involved with technology back in 1984 with his first program. Using his ability and uniqueness to automate workflow to collapse things down as a trader to manage risk, and positions, identify value, and stylize relative pricing as a way to value options against each other. Later taking third-party solutions which Tony delivered to banks and trading shops around the world and has been doing for 30 years. Started a number of companies, built them up, and sold them. Liquid Mercury is his latest and best generation of technology.
• Business Service: Simplifying complex work to better serve the clients. Integrate third-party analytical tools.
• Secret Sauce: Liquidity provision. Checks and balances. Ready and embrace the guidelines.
• CEO Hack: Looking at a problem from all different angles. Picking one major issue, laying a hand on it, and focusing on that problem. Having a mentor.
• CEO Nugget: Check yourself. In trading it's money management – so you don’t overtrade, and maintain your trade sides. Do not let your ego out of control. Make sure you have a connection to the people that matter in your company.
• CEO Defined: Different responsibilities to different subsets of a business sphere – Shareholders, stakeholders, management team, how you look to your customers, how you look to the public, how you look to your investors, how you interact with your team

Website: liquidmercury.com

Twitter: powerprocrypto , ajsmarketwizard

LinkedIn: liquidmercury , tonysaliba

Check out one of our favorite CEO Hack’s Audible. Get your free audiobook and check out more of our favorite CEO Hacks HERE

Transcription

The full transcription is only available to CBNation Library Members. Sign up today!

Please Note: Our team is using the AI CEO Hacks: Exemplary AI and Otter.ai to support our podcast transcription. While we know it's improving there may be some inaccuracies, we are updating and improving them. Please contact us if you notice any issues, you can also test out Exemplary AI here.

00:28 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share precisely the information you're searching for. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:56 – Gresham Harkless

Hello, this is Gresham from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Tony Saliba of Liquid Mercy. Tony, excited to have you on the show.

01:06 – Tony Saliba

Thanks, Gresham. Excited to be here.

01:08 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. You're doing so many phenomenal things. So before we jump into the conversation, I want to read a little bit more about Tony so you can hear about some of those awesome things. Tony is the CEO of Liquid Mercury. He is a world-renowned trading expert with more than four decades of experience and his current company is also a major technology provider for digital assets and cryptocurrency markets. He is an internationally renowned business leader, multifaceted serial entrepreneur, options trader, pioneer and master trader board member of the Chicago Stock Exchange, author and shareholder, operator, and investor in nearly 100 companies.

Tony has been the founding member of key companies in the trading and tech industry such as Efficient Capital Management, International Trading Institute, Liquid Point, Fortify Technologies, and many more. He currently maintains a global team of staffers in offices around the us, UK, and China, helping companies achieve high rates of growth and identifying initiatives to unlock exponential value. Tony, again, excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

[restrict paid=”true”]

02:11- Tony Saliba

I sure am. Thanks, Gresh.

02:13 – Gresham Harkless

Thank you. Let's get it started then. So to kind of kick everything off. I know I talked about all the awesome things you've been able to accomplish, so I wanted to kick things off by Rwanda. Click here for a little bit more about how you got started what I call your CEO story.

02:24 – Tony Saliba

Well, I started when I was about five years old. I'm just kidding. When you read all those things off, it sounds like, wow. I started out as a floor trader on the CBOE and I guess what is my overarching catchphrase is necessity is the mother of invention. I got involved in technology with my first program in 1984 and anybody who knows me or has read about me, people were saying, well, what are you going to run the program on and I said PC. They said, well that's for personal use, not for business use. I said, okay, I'll do all the work at home and not bring it into the office.

But as we know from then till now the PC has driven so much and I just used it, I don't know if it's unique, but part of my ability to automate workflow to collapse things down. As a trader I wanted to manage my risk, and my positions to identify value. I stylized relative pricing which was a way to value options against each other without a theoretical model that you could utilize quickly in the pit, which didn't allow computers at the time. Then later in the 80s, I ended up taking my know-how into third-party solutions where we delivered to banks and trading shops around the world and have been doing that for about 30 years. I've started a number of companies, built them up, and sold them.

Most recently Matrix Execution which is broker-dealer. I'm still on the board and one of the major shareholders there. It's a great technology shop and Liquid Mercury is just a natural follow on GRESH to that workflow automation. So taking things that people need to do to trade and boiling it down to as few movements, clicks, and swipes as possible. Liquid mercury has the best our latest and best generation of technology.

04:56 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. No, I appreciate you breaking that down and being able to kind of create something that helps out these, you know, B2B organizations be able to help better serve their clients and organizations. So you mentioned a lot of the clients and how you serve them it sounds like simplifying the things that might be a lot more complicated or complex that they're working on so that they can better serve their clients. And that definitely sounds like that's what you all do at Liquid Mercury to make that impact.

05:26 – Tony Saliba

Yes. So a very basic example Gresh, would be to integrate a third-party analytical tool. So if you're trading whatever you're trading, whether you're trading stocks or futures, there's some level of charting or analysis obviously, and then we've always focused on options and options have another dimension of analysis that is required With Liquid Mercury we handle the crypto options, crypto spot futures. Liquid mercury is kind of forging the way towards that and our solutions involve checks and balances.

Aml, which is anti-money laundering checks and balances, kyc, know your customer. We have to provide digital security and verification of where the cryptocurrency is coming from and who the user is. So we're, we're all about embracing that regulatory environment, and then it's all brought together really tight, quick, and simple on our beautiful front-end technology.

06:51- Gresham Harkless

Nice. Well, I definitely appreciate you for expounding upon that, you know, with everything that's happening in the news at the time where we're recording, but also too just it kind of sounds like you even touched on what might be your secret sauce or the organization's secret sauce and sets it apart.

07:05 – Tony Saliba

Combining all those functions in one under one roof without two sets of eyes or more that don't have the same vested interest. Like I think having liquidity provision, in other words, a market maker on the other side of your trade or my trade when we want to execute, should not be the role of the exchange. The exchange should provide a fair and orderly market. Those things are now really under a microscope, spotlight, intense clique lamps if you will. There are a lot of firms, ours included, that are ready and willing to embrace some guidelines to be fair.

We have had this AML and KYC for quite a long time which allows us to do some checks and balances with respect to who you're trading against. But in the case of FTP, I think they violated, and I'm just based on what I've read, violated a lot of those rules and we participate with other firms that adhere to these anti-money laundering and know your customer rule sets. We are very risk averse. Our stuff's encrypted so that it's immune to hacking while we don't hold any of the capital, we just maintain the execution and we have a long history of working within the boundaries of regulated financial markets and embracing that.

09:03 – Gresham Harkless

Oh, appreciate you letting us know about that and I think that's huge. Being able to have those, for lack of a better term, sometimes morals and desire for not just yourself and the organization, but the people that you're working with and the people that they're even working with as well too is so huge. I think that's so evident obviously in the crypto space and in the financial space but in so many other aspects of business as well.

Definitely commend you for having that be an aspect and it sounds like a guiding light in everything that you all are doing. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

09:42- Tony Saliba

I have my nickname for myself and others around me also call me Mr. What if. So just growing up as an options trader, I've always had a habit of trying to look at a problem from all angles. We would say, let's turn the chessboard around and try to look at things from all angles. Additionally, I pick one of my major issues as I lay my head on the pillow at night. This isn't new for a lot of your CEOs out there, but it's good to be reminded of that. I focus on that problem as I'm falling asleep.

I'm a true believer that the subconscious helps work some of these problems out so that the next day or days ensuing, while you are conscious and you revisit that problem, your subconscious mind has spent time pounding away on that, doing what it's what is on solving this issue. Then additionally having a mentor. If you're a new CEO, try to find someone you emulate or look up to. If you're an experienced CEO, help by mentoring someone. I do that. With technology, it makes it easier for us to do some virtual mentoring and answer questions, whether it be about their trading account or trying to run a business.

11:18- Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. I love each of those hacks. One of the things that really resonated with me as far as the hack, you talked about that mentor piece. I think that a lot of times if you are younger or don't have as much gray hair, maybe a better way to say it is that you lean on the expertise and knowledge of those that have that perspective, that have those tried and true methods that they've been able to do.

That can help to kind of put you in the right place and increase your likelihood of success. So that actually kind of brings me to what I was going to ask you for, which is more of a CEO nugget is a little bit more word of wisdom or piece of advice, something you might tell a mentee or something you might tell your favorite client, or if you happen to a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

11:55- Tony Saliba

Well, definitely check yourself. In a trading environment, we would call it money management. So you don't overtrade, maintain your trade size, and being a CEO where whether you have one or two people on the team or 100 or 200 people as you're growing it to not let your ego get out of control, check yourself and make sure you have a connection with the people that matter in your team, in your company.

I'm a consumer of a lot of news and podcasts and media, reading lots of posts and pieces each day, and the common thread of failure is when people get out over their skis, aren't doing, as I said earlier, your what ifs, checking yourself and saying I don't, I don't say be overly cautious or too cautious that you can't grow. But know when you, if you're using a sports analogy, football, know when to hit the hole and be careful otherwise.

13:18 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. I think you touched on this as well, too. Which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. I think you touched on being a chef and being a cook in the kitchen. Do you feel like that's what it means to you, to be a CEO?

13:28 – Tony Saliba

Yes. I mean, you have different responsibilities to different subsets of your business sphere. You have your shareholders or investors, so stakeholders that are committed to capital. As a CEO, you have to worry about those different spheres. How you look to the public, how you look to your customers, how you look to your investors, and how you interact with your team.

So it's that looking in the pots and lifting the lids and making sure everything's coming together properly and doing it day in and day out, producing daily P&Ls, monthly reports, quarterly updates to the board. It is formulaic in some regard, but it also requires breaking rank from the common and usual and trying to have a personal touch along the way. If you succeed, people will remember that and they'll like doing business with your company.

14:49 – Gresham Harkless

Tony, truly appreciate that definition, of course, appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course, how best they can get a hold of you. Find out about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

15:05- Tony Saliba

Thanks, Gresham. Well, you can go to liquidmercury.com and if you go to the contact us and mention Grash or I am CEO podcast, I'll answer your questions personally, whether it be about trading in general, trading options, crypto, or the liquid mercury solution, which we'd be happy to introduce you to one of our clients that use our solution to give you safe and effective crypto trading so that you know liquidmercury.com and down at the bottom contact us. Mention Gresham and I will answer personally.

15:49 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Well Tony, truly appreciate that. To make it even easier, we'll have the links and information in the show notes too so that everybody can follow up with you and your team and find out about all the awesome things that you're cooking up and you're doing as a leader and also in terms of your inventing and creating. So thank you so much again my friend and I hope you have a phenomenal day.

16:07 – Tony Saliba

Great Gresham. Thank you so much and best to you and your audience.

16:10 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

[/restrict]