Tarek Mansour
Tarek Mansour is an American entrepreneur and financial technology executive, best known as the co-founder and chief executive officer of Kalshi, the first federally regulated exchange for event contracts in the United States.[1][2] Background[edit]Mansour was born in California, but grew up in Lebanon. He co-founded Kalshi in 2018 with Luana Lopes Lara. The company received approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to operate as a Designated Contract Market (DCM) in November 2020.[3] Under Mansour's leadership, Kalshi became the original platform in the stand alone prediction marketplace industry, allowing users to trade on the outcomes of various events, including political elections. In 2024, Mansour led Kalshi through a significant legal battle with the CFTC over the right to offer contracts on U.S. congressional elections. The case resulted in a landmark court decision that allowed Kalshi to offer these contracts, marking a major shift in the landscape of prediction markets and political betting in the United States.[4] Work Experience Prior to Kalshi[edit]Before co-founding Kalshi, Mansour gained diverse experience in finance, technology, and research: Finance Sector[edit]Mansour worked as a global macro trader at Citadel from May 2018 to May 2019, where he gained experience in financial markets and trading strategies. Before that, he held a position as an equity derivatives analyst at Goldman Sachs from January to August 2016, focused on structured credit and equities. During his time at these firms, Mansour observed that much of the trading activity was driven by opinions on future events. For instance, at Goldman Sachs, he noticed a significant focus on providing institutions with exposure to, or hedges against, events like Brexit. This was typically achieved through the sale of complex financial instruments such as swaps and options, which served as proxies for the binary event exposure that clients sought.[5] Mansour recognized that while these complex financial bundles approximated the desired event exposure, they were often expensive and indirect. He identified a gap in the market: the inability to trade directly on events themselves, which would have been simpler and more cost-effective for clients. This insight would later inform the founding concept of Kalshi. Technology Sector[edit]Mansour spent a year as a forward deployed engineer at Palantir Technologies from January 2017 to January 2018.[6]
Research and Academia[edit]During his time at MIT, Mansour took on various roles. He worked as an artificial intelligence researcher at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) from June to September 2018. Additionally, he served as a senior consultant at MIT from February 2015 to December 2017. Education[edit]Mansour holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which he earned between 2014 and 2018. He also participated in the Y Combinator program in 2019.[7] Prior to his university education, Mansour attended College Louise Wegmann from 2001 to 2014.[8] References[edit]
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