Washington, DC— FIA today announced the winners of its President's Award, an annual honour that recognizes outstanding individuals for their contributions to the global cleared derivatives industry over the past year.
The 2026 class of President's Award winners are:
- Kate Simpson, JP Morgan, Operations
- Samina Anwar, Cargill, DMIST
- Rebekah Metz, FIA Tech, EATM
- Joanna Boyle (formerly Williams), bp, Commodities
- Viktor Vadasz, Morgan Stanley, Advocacy
- Simon LaForet, BNP Paribas, EMIR 3.0
“FIA depends on the leadership and expertise of professionals across our member firms to advance industry-wide initiatives, shape thoughtful comment letters, keep the marketplace informed about emerging developments and respond swiftly to unforeseen market events,” said FIA President and CEO Walt Lukken. “This award honours six individuals whose direct and impactful contributions have strengthened our work in 2025. We are sincerely grateful for their partnership and their commitment to promoting open, transparent and competitive derivatives markets.”
Kate Simpson, President's Award – Operations
Kate Simpson, executive director of prime financial services at JP Morgan has been a strong advocate for the exchange-traded derivatives industry for many years. Working across trading, operations, compliance, and industry advocacy across multiple APAC jurisdictions, she engages constructively in a positive and inclusive manner. Over the past year, Simpson has contributed on behalf of JPM to consultations covering regulatory, risk, execution, and post-trade matters. She has also participated in regional conferences as both an attendee and panellist and consistently promotes FIA as the leading industry association across the region.
Samina Anwar, President's Award – DMIST
Samina Anwar is senior director of Cargill's global derivatives operations and country leader for the UK & Ireland. As Chair of the DMIST Sponsor Board, Anwar has been a driving force for industry wide standardization through the work of DMIST. In her time as Chair, DMIST has published its first four standards, as well as three implementation guides. She has also led DMIST roundtables at FIA programs, connecting standards work to real world implementation and adoption, and strengthened governance through focused biweekly chair meetings with the DMIST team. Her leadership style strengthens FIA’s mission and magnifies DMIST’s impact across the industry.
Rebekah Metz, President's Award – EATM
Rebekah Metz is senior vice president, head of legal, risk & compliance at FIA Tech. She is the consummate project manager with deep industry knowledge that makes her contributions efficient and effective. She has demonstrated her outstanding project management and organisation skills by helping FIA and the Consortium members navigate a long and complex project – the European Agent Trustee Model (English model) - to its conclusion in December 2025. Her calm and ‘can-do' attitude contributed to a timely delivery of agreed EATM deliverables.
Joanna Boyle (formerly Williams), President's Award – Commodities
Joanna Boyle is a senior compliance manager at bp leading on financial regulatory policy and advocacy across EMEA. She consistently provides comments and drafting assistance on FIA’s consultation responses, always challenging our view and bringing an end-user focus, as well as ensuring her peers are aware of the impact of legislative initiatives. In 2025, Boyle spent a lot of her time assisting FIA with our consultation responses to the EU MiFID II and Draghi recommendations analysis. She joined our dialogue with the FCA on the UK’s review of the ancillary activities exemption and the UK review of position limits and position management and she supported us on position letters to various European Commission departments on the price cap and regulatory consequences of the energy crisis.
Viktor Vadasz, President's Award – Advocacy
Viktor Vadasz is executive director of resource optimization at Morgan Stanley. He has been an active and highly engaged member of the FIA CCP Risk Committee for many years. He consistently comes prepared with robust data and deep subject matter expertise, which has materially strengthened the quality of the Committee’s discussions, responses, and external engagement. Over time, Viktor has played a particularly influential role in advancing the Committee’s thinking on CCP margin transparency. In 2025, he articulated a clear and compelling case for the development of CCP margin simulators accessible to clearing members and end users, enabling better anticipation of margin calls. This work contributed to the establishment of what has since become a global standard, strengthening risk management practices across the industry. In addition, Viktor has made sustained and meaningful contributions across a range of other key association priorities, including CCP default management and CCP recovery and resolution.
Simon LaForet, President’s Award – EMIR 3.0
Simon LaForet works in Regulatory and Public Affairs at BNP Paribas. He is a highly active participant in FIA’s work across key files in the EU. Particularly in 2025, he assisted on important work such as EMIR 3.0 active accounts requirements and stress testing for EU participants, margin transparency, gilt repo clearing, clearing equivalence and ongoing FIA work linked to the European Commission’s Savings and Investment Union proposals. He keeps FIA informed of the latest regulatory developments and is integral to our advocacy activities across EU jurisdictions.
