CME’s international head of communications, Allan Schoenberg, works across every time zone. He spends some QT with Andrew Thomas

Photographs by Sam Friedrich 

"If you get an opportunity take it. Make the most of it. It’s probably not going to be the only job you have, so don’t be afraid even if you don’t think it’s the best thing for you,” as Allan Schoenberg, international head of communications for CME Group, the world’s largest exchange operator, tells youngsters at the start of their careers. It’s sound advice from a man who talked his way into his first communications job with a Detroit car dealership after experiencing shoddy customer service.

“They realised they needed to do more in the community and I needed a job. It was ‘right place, right time, right people, right opportunity,’” he says. It’s hard to know whether Schoenberg’s career has really been blessed by such perfect alignment for he is a man who punctuates his conversation with the sage counsel of never regretting past decisions.

He doesn’t regret his choice of bachelor’s degree, in economics from Central Michigan University, despite being compelled some 13 years later to complete a master’s in communications management. “Doing economics was one of the best things I ever did,” he says. “I feel it’s been a key driver to my success and understanding macro and micro economics has helped me know how to make things happen in a global economy.”

Schoenberg certainly needs to understand how to make things happen across all time zones. He moved to London to take up the international role in 2011, having started at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) seven years earlier. CME have partnerships with 10 exchanges, it is expanding in Asia with new offices in Seoul and Tokyo, it owns a majority share in the Dubai Mercantile Exchange, it opened in Belfast last year where it now employs 80 people and it has just completed the acquisition of the Kansas City Board of Trade. Schoenberg wakes to emails from Beijing lighting up his Blackberry, deals with European business during the day, before finally liaising with his American counterparts in the evening.

It is, no doubt, his daytime hours that are demanding the most attentions right now. CME London is set to open a new futures market in September. But it isn’t just CME Group’s growth that excites Schoenberg. CME have products in almost every investable asset class, from currencies to commodities and from livestock to housing. They even have derivative products on the weather. Schoenberg is genuinely enthusiastic when he explains CME Group’s offering, “One of the really exciting things about CME is that there is an opportunity to touch so many storylines and to be really creative in how we position ourselves.”

Storytelling comes naturally to Schoenberg, clearly developed during his early years working in PR agencies. Friends working for Eisbrenner PR, a small Detroit boutique PR shop specialising in the automotive industry, persuaded him to leave the Ford dealership.

He was at Eisbrenner for three and a half years, before taking a gamble heading, jobless, to Chicago. “I was a little fearful going into the unknowm, but the economy had come back. I was hungry and fairly confident that I would find something,” Schoenberg says. The something he sought turned out to be Fleischman Hillard.

At the time, Fleischman was the biggest independent PR firm, but its focus was on consumer work. Schoenberg readily admits that his heart lies in business to business communications, so when, after only four months, a B2B opportunity came up at Edelman he eagerly took it.

Edelman gave him exposure to the tech industry. This was the late ’90s and everything was coming out of the dotcom boom. Newly listed companies such as Red Hat were seeing their value increase threefold overnight and the internet community was where everyone wanted to be. Schoenberg had pitched Edelman’s services to Mike Sappington, an old university friend of his. Sappington had recently co-founded an internet security firm, Netrex. The next day, Netrex called him back. They were declining the offer of Edelman’s support but had a better idea – they wanted Schoenberg to join them instead.

Schoenberg found the move back to an in-house role exciting, but it wasn’t without its challenges, “I was their head of comms, so there were plenty of exciting elements, but if I hadn’t known anyone it would have been harder.” Two months in it became harder still – Netrex were bought by Internet Security Systems (ISS), an Atlanta- based, listed security software provider. “I had to fly over to meet my new boss, I was suddenly part of a large team, and no longer running communications. I wasn’t naïve, I knew I had to sell myself.”

Fortunately both sides liked each other. Not only that, but ISS avoided much of the bubble bursting taking place at the turn of the century, that saw many companies call in the administrators and send home the staff. “Fortunately the company was in a good place – everyone needed security, and they still do,” notes Schoenberg.

Overnight Schoenberg went from working for a 20-strong internet startup to working for a NASDAQ-listed international firm. “It was tremendous experience,” recalls Schoenberg. “I was now exposed to the international media and these big news outlets. I learned so much.”

After two years, however, Schoenberg was ready for a move. Over lunch with a friend from his brief tenure at Fleischmann Hillard, the conversation turned to how the two had always wanted to work together again. The next day, in a now familiar custom, the friend called and told Schoenberg she would like to have him on the team at Accenture, the recently detached and rebranded former consulting arm of Arthur Anderson.

Accenture was a turning point for many reasons. “I had a degree in economics, I’d worked for some really cool global agencies but moving to Accenture was just a step up,” Schoenberg says. I was pulling together some great campaigns and working for some amazing people but I realised I wasn’t keeping up with my peers.” Schoenberg decided to go back to university and pursue a master’s degree in communications management.

“The programme was built around the concept of communication as a management function,” he says. “It broadened my perspective in seeing the way organisations communicate and the part communications plays in their strategy.”

As if studying part-time for a master’s degree wasn’t hard enough, nine months into the course Schoenberg changed jobs, “Studying gave me a newfound energy. I wasn’t actively looking, but when the opportunity at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange came up I wanted

to see what I could apply from the degree and my experience.” Schoenberg had started the degree to improve his career and become a better communications professional. But he had always wanted to teach. Studying for the degree provided him with academic networking opportunities and as the course neared its conclusion, Schoenberg took on not one, but two, part-time adjunct professorships, at De Paul University and Loyola University Chicago,

lecturing on communications and reputation management. CME were tremendously supportive of Schoenberg’s teaching. “I always said the job came first, no matter what. If I had to go out of town or if we had a crisis then obviously I was not going to teach.” It seemed there were few incidents, and he was able to teach at night, one or two nights a week for five years, from 2005 to 2010. “It was fun and exciting and challenging and I think when I look back it has made me a better professional.“

Schoenberg is as animated about social media as he is about his teaching. “For me, the light bulb moment was stumbling on to a Facebook group talking about the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. I’d found this group, outside of our knowledge, having all these conversations about the products we were offering. I suddenly realised we had an audience and they’re talking about us – we should try and be there too. I thought, if it works, great and if it doesn’t work then so what, you’ve got to try. Today we have 21,000 followers.”

CME Group’s social media presence extends well beyond Facebook, and the company is regarded as leaders in its sector. “Social media is a very effective tool for us,” says Schoenberg. “We use it as an education resource, we use it for customer services and to help people. Yes, we reach new audiences through it, but we just try to make people think a little bit differently about us.”

It’s obvious that Schoenberg thinks about audiences constantly. On his speaker biographies that grace the many conferences at which he has spoken, he defines himself as “an experienced public relations professional” but acknowledges that his role spreads wider than the traditional media-centric use of that job title. “I would say the primary focus of my role is externally facing with traditional media as well as social media. If I’m working on a story with the Financial Times with one of our senior executives, I also understand that our employees will read it, our partners will read it, our competitors and our customers too. I think that no matter what we do externally it will reach a broader group of people.”

When Schoenberg started at CME Group there were 12 staff members in the UK. By the time he came over in 2011, that number had leapt to 150. He eschewed the traditional expat neighbourhoods of Chelsea or Kensington, opting instead for the gentility of Putney. Despite the burden of the multiple time zones with which he has to juggle, Schoenberg doesn’t just cite “spending time with his family,” he actually manages to put it into practice, making sure his schedule allows for bike rides or country hikes with his four children and playing football at his son’s school every Tuesday.

His passion for football isn’t something acquired to help him assimilate in Europe. He has been an Arsenal fan since watching his first match at the old Highbury stadium 22 years ago. He plays every year at the annual Gorkana charity match and is currently putting together a 5-a-side team at CME.

For a man who had spent most of his adult life in Chicago and his childhood in nearby Detroit, it would be unsurprising to not detect a wistful hint of homesickness. His wife spent time in London during her degree which made the decision to move to the UK easier, “I have friends in the States and you can’t help but to miss those, but, you know, I love Europe, and I love the people here. I have no regrets. You can’t look back and say what if this, what if that.”

For a man with team members in every time zone, a busy family and a thirst for knowledge it’s almost certain he doesn’t have time for regrets.