Bro. Reginald M. Browne

Brother Reginald Browne, known as both the “Godfather of ETFs” and the “Dean of ETFs”, has been at the forefront in revolutionizing the way Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) are traded in the financial markets. An industry veteran, Bro. Browne has spent almost two decades developing and trading ETFs. He is credited with helping to bring to market approximately 25% of the ETFs listed in the United States (according to Wharton Business Daily). Through his influence, he has also helped institutions such as BlackRock and Vanguard launch ETFs worldwide and also played an instrumental role in providing liquidity to grow the ETF markets in Chile, Peru, and Mexico. These efforts helped to transform and shape the exchange-traded fund business into a multi-trillion-dollar industry.

To understand the significance of Bro. Browne’s contribution to the financial industry, one must understand that the stock market in a traditional sense is a market that is driven by traditional investments such as equities, bonds, and mutual funds. These products alone in a portfolio would subject the individual investor to certain risks such as geographic, industry, and/or liquidity. Like the introduction of the home computer, which provided individual consumers with access to a system that was once reserved for businesses or those with money, ETFs revolutionized how individual investors gained access to the market. ETFs offer both tax efficiency as well as lower transaction and management costs which provide accessibility to non-traditional investors. In an interview with Bro. Browne, he stated:

 “ETFs were a response to several needs for investors. One of them was that smaller investors didn’t want to deal with futures... Seeing the competition against futures was my first ‘a-ha’ moment.”

Through ETFs, Bro. Browne paved the way for investors of all types, big and small; institutional or retail, to participate in the market at a relatively lower cost. To show the impact of this product, Bloomberg recognized that “the reality is that if your grandma owns an emerging-markets ETF, she’s sitting alongside the likes of Bridgewater Associates and a Singaporean sovereign wealth fund”. 

Bro. Browne Browne is Principal of GTS Securities and oversees institutional trading of ETFs, with operations in the Americas. Previously, Bro. Browne led his business under the flags of Cantor Fitzgerald and KCG after many years at O’Connor and Associates and Susquehanna.

Bro. Browne earned his Bachelor’s of Business Administration from La Salle University, where he was initiated into Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc., via Mu Upsilon Chapter. Today, Bro. Browne currently serves as a Trustee of La Salle University. He also is a trustee of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and McCarter Theater in Princeton, NJ. In January 2015, Bro. Browne was appointed to the Equity Market Structure Advisory Committee advising the Securities and Exchange Commission on industry views on the future of US Equity Markets.