Chris Donnan

Head of Trading at Ergonia, where I built and run the trading organization. Our sole backers are the partners of DRW.

Previously CTO at Tyler Capital, leading ML-driven systematic trading across 20+ futures markets on CME, ICE and Eurex from go-live in 2015 through 2022. We were early — builders of machine learning, not just users — applying RL-like evolution strategies to optimize fully learned neural network models trading some of the largest markets in the world. Before that, Global Head of Electronic Trading Technology at Barclays.

Machine learning is a through-line for me. In 2005, I began my ML journey applying neural networks and evolutionary algorithms to trading. Tyler was 100% ML-driven trades for almost 7 years — not just making forecasts, but solving directly for agent actions. This was the era of ecorithms; we built systems that learned by interacting, taking actions in their complex environment. Today we're heavy, early users of LLMs and other forms of ML. Maybe soon I can stop hedging, calling it ML, and we'll get actual AI.

I work at the intersection of quant trading, crypto, AI, and markets.