Joan Rockey joined Simplex Trading, LLC, in June 2025 as chief financial officer and also holds the Financial Operations Principal ("FINOP," Series 27), Principal Financial Officer ("PFO"), and Principal Operating Officer ("POO") roles.
She brings more than 30 years of leadership experience across SEC-regulated financial services firms, including RIAs, national wealth management firms, family offices, venture capital funds, hedge funds, broker-dealers, and proprietary trading firms. Her expertise spans financial strategy, regulatory oversight, M&A, high-growth environments, and complex restructuring initiatives.
Before joining Simplex Trading, LLC, Joan served as CFO and equity partner at two private-equity-owned national wealth management RIAs—The Mather Group, LLC ($10 billion in assets under advisement) and Cerity Partners LLC ($30 billion in assets under advisement)—where she drove financial operations and strategic initiatives behind significant firm growth and successful acquisitions. She founded and led 633EAST Consulting LLC, advising family offices and middle-market financial services firms on financial and operational strategy and data analytics through periods of high growth and restructuring; she was also founder and CEO of Hadelrock Capital Management, LLC, an event-driven hedge fund, and CFO and partner of CastleArk Management, LLC. She began her career at Ernst & Young LLP in its Reorganization & Restructuring financial advisory group, advising private equity firms and publicly traded companies on tax strategy, valuation, and corporate reorganization.
A recognized leader in the Chicago finance community, Joan is a past chairman of the CFA Society of Chicago—the sixth-largest CFA society worldwide—and a past president of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analysts Association and the Chicago Finance Exchange. She is a frequent speaker on finance and accounting topics, including at AICPA national conferences on data visualization, innovation culture, and financial transformation, and was named one of Crain's Chicago Business's Notable Women in Finance.
Joan holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and dual master’s degrees in taxation and finance from DePaul University. She has also completed executive education programs in Data Science for Executives at the University of California, Berkeley, and Internet of Things: Business Implications and Opportunities at MIT, reflecting a focus on applying data analytics and emerging technology to financial operations. She is a licensed CPA and holds the CFA, CGMA, CMA, and CAIA designations.
