WASHINGTON — Bullish, the digital-asset exchange company run by Georgetown alumnus Tom Farley, on Monday named Stacey Cunningham, who succeeded him as president of the New York Stock Exchange, as its president, the company announced.
The hire reunites two former NYSE presidents at a company that is trying to move stock-market plumbing onto blockchains. Bullish said Cunningham’s appointment “comes as Bullish advances its strategy to connect traditional capital markets infrastructure with blockchain technology.” The company furnished the announcement to the Securities and Exchange Commission the same day in a Form 6-K.
“Stacey is one of the most respected leaders in global capital markets, and I’ve seen firsthand the impact of her leadership,” Farley said in the release. “As we bring together traditional financial infrastructure and blockchain technology, Stacey will play a central role in building the next generation of services for market participants.”
Farley holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Georgetown, according to his Bullish biography. Georgetown Athletics lists him as a member of the College’s Class of 1997 (C’97) who played four seasons on the Hoyas baseball team, starting in 187 games, according to a 2015 profile published when he led the NYSE.
From Wall Street to the blockchain
Farley was president of NYSE Group, part of Intercontinental Exchange, from May 2014 to May 2018, his Bullish biography says. He went on to lead two special-purpose acquisition companies, Far Point and Far Peak, before becoming Bullish’s chief executive. He is also chairman of its board.
Cunningham became the first woman to lead the NYSE Group, where she also served as chief operating officer, and earlier held senior roles at Nasdaq, according to the Bullish release. She serves on the boards of Cloudflare, the New York Stock Exchange and Georgetown University’s Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy, the company said. She has also been an operating partner at private equity firm Advent and an adviser to Uniswap Labs.
“Public markets depend on trusted infrastructure, but there is an enormous opportunity to make that infrastructure more efficient, connected and accessible,” Cunningham said in the release. “Bullish is bringing together the expertise, technology and relationships needed to deliver meaningful improvements for issuers and shareholders.”
The Equiniti deal
The appointment comes as Bullish works to close its $4.2 billion acquisition of Equiniti, a transfer agent that the company says serves nearly 3,000 issuer clients and more than 20 million shareholders. Bullish announced the deal in May. Transfer agents keep the official records of who owns a company’s shares, and Bullish has said owning one would let it offer the full chain of “issuance, listing, trading and tracking of issuer-sponsored tokens.”
In its second-quarter results, released Aug. 13, Bullish said the Equiniti deal was expected to close in early 2027, subject to regulatory approvals. The company reported a net loss of $280.0 million for the quarter, compared with net income of $108.3 million a year earlier. It also reported record subscription, services and other revenue of $62.7 million and adjusted revenue, a non-IFRS measure, of $92.6 million, up from $57.0 million. The company also said it had won approval from the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission for trading in tokenized securities.
Bullish listed on the New York Stock Exchange in August 2025 under the ticker BLSH, Finance Magnates reported. The company has scheduled its third-quarter results for Nov. 18, with a conference call at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time, according to its Oct. 28 announcement.
Farley is one of a number of Georgetown alumni in senior roles in finance. Others the Inquisitor has covered this fall include Ares Management co-founder Tony Ressler, whose company’s third-quarter results the beat reported on Nov. 2.
Featured photo: Tom Farley, then president of the New York Stock Exchange, January 2018. (Financial Times / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0)
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