Vincent Viola is our Founder and has served as our Executive Chairman since November 2013. dchristensen@floridabulldog.org So here you are in Central Park South, a young man, and you are standing on Central Park South. Vincent J. Viola is the Chairman, Owner and Governor of Sunrise Sports & Entertainment and the National Hockey League's Florida Panthers, as well as Chairman of the Florida Panthers Foundation. People always say you learn to be a leader at West Point, but I find it hard to imagine how you teach leadership. [19] The choice was reported to be concerning to the nominated Secretary of Defense General James Mattis, who was reportedly not informed of the choice prior to the announcement, a position he would directly oversee, and was concerned about potential trading practices which were not yet fully investigated. The military mission and the duties, day-to-day, they take up so much of your consciousness that you are Puritan in your pursuit of the Spartan ethic. (Page 2) [9] At West Point, Viola played on the sprint football team and was cadet company commander for Company E-4 his senior year. So you knew everyones name when you began the first week after Beast Barracks that you would spend with your new company, called reorganization week. Cool on honor meant to the people who apparently would cheat and collaborate was that you were okay with collaborating or cheating. These instructors you had at the time, they wereyou said some of them were Vietnam veterans. My mothers first advice when I told her I was going to get out of the Army, she said, You need to take the civil service test for different positions in New York City, which I thought a little bit about. So my class would be a fascinating study. And upon further investigations, they found enough to where it was a systemic problem and challenge to the honor code. And so theit mustve been quite an achievement for you. Did your class feel shamed by this, you think? Doctor of Jurisprudence, New York Law School; Bachelor of Arts/Science, United States Military Academy. Mr. $2.5 billion, according to our most recent tally. The Sexual Revolution was abound. Did you knowyou mustve known some of the cadets that were involved with this. We have the same number of Stanley Cups! You have an affirmative duty, if you see. And that stuck with mesort of confirmed for me that the military was an honorable profession. His father's Army service made a significant impression on Viola as a youth. It was a special provisional detachment. You cannot help but that feeling. Viola is a. My dad took ill during my Yearling Year, and I was theI had become quickly the sole source of leadership in my family, and. Yes. Vincent Viola, the billionaire Wall Street trader who is President Trump's nominee to be secretary of the Army, has been negotiating to sell his airline, a move that would alleviate a potential. Now, my roommate is a person you should interview for this. Douglas A. Cifu - Vice Chairman, Partner & Alternate Governor. Did you havedid your family have an Army background at all? A British financier has snapped up billionaire Vincent Viola's Upper East Side townhouse at 12. The Hong Kong billionaire developer sees silver lining in mainland Chinas property market turmoil, readies master plan to hand over group to next generation. I remember the first time I heard an upperclassman kind of bad-mouthing some of the policies of the Academy. Spring through Firstyeah. So when you would ask my dad, What are you, he probably would say, Im a male, husband, father, American, Catholic, or Catholic, American.. And of course, my class suffered the honor scandal of 1976. I think hewell, I dont know what you would call that. Branch of THREE BROTHERS FAMILY OFFICE LLC (New York (US)) Agent Name. Market-maker Virtu completed a series of secondary offerings in May 2019 to help repurchase more than $500 million in stock from Viola. He received his juris doctor degree from New York Law School in June 1983,[1][12][13] but did not complete the bar exam. So he tells a story about how he was assigned then to a maneuver battalionIm sure as a supply sergeant of some sortfollowing the invasion of Anzio, and he received a V letter from my grandfather, who wasmy grandfather had spent approximately 14 years in the Italian cavalry and horse-drawn artillery and served with a very prestigious Italian artillery regiment and participated in the series of a campaign in the Alps and the Isola Valley in World War I. A life-long horse racing enthusiast and owner of St. Elias Stables, Mr. Viola owns the 2017 Kentucky Derby and Florida Derby-winning horse, Always Dreaming, and the 2019 Breeder's Cup Classic winner, Vino Rosso. Most persons had been introduced at some point to drug usedrinking was very, very accepted. He was the founder of Virtu East in 2008, a founder of Madison . Yeah, I thinkyeah, I do. That themetheres a saying and a phrase thats used amongst cadets and graduates. [16], Leah McGrath Goodman's 2011 book, The Asylum: The Renegades Who Hijacked the World's Oil Market, describes Viola and his temperament. Hes a wonderful role model and a great soldier, and I still keep in touch periodicallyjust simply very blessed. So the storyIm saying the story had kind of gotI mean you had two kinds of wars here. Spring through First Class year summer, yeah. Having a mobile app can increase accessibility for customers and provide a better customer experience. And its a very grave, simple, but singular point in which your responsibility to duty and your understanding of it intercedes with your desire to take it on. And I was born in a neighborhood that was very close to Wall Street, and the generation before mecause Wall Street always had a demand, especially in those days, for pretty much cheap labor. The company that I was a member inas Im sure you knowafter Beast Barracks you are assigned to a company in one of the four regiments. If you dont understand all of the inputs to that self-realization or self-decision point, you seek out and you ask, What is it like to be in combatphysically, psychologically?. Vincent "Vinnie" Viola (born 1956) is an American billionaire businessman and U.S. Army veteran. When I would go home on leave, all of my friends had gotten into some level of drug use, so I had to make a very specific choice, and that choice was, I cannot do this. [15] Viola took Virtu Financial public in April 2015, trading as a NASDAQ listed company (VIRT). Since then, the Foundation has provided free educational programming for hundreds of local public schools and continues to serve the community through ongoing outreach programs, crisis relief efforts, grant programs, and partnerships with local 501c3 organizations. My dad was three years old, approximately, when they came to America. 2017. He is the son of the late Thomas and the late Caterina (Verrastro) Viola. Place of Birth: New York City, U.S. Vincent Viola Net Worth and salary: Vincent Viola is an American businessman and U.S. Army veteran who has a net worth of $2.8 billion . They are co-owners of Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming. I remember as a young man unrealistically wanting to go to Vietnam. And individual companies had distinct ethos, because back in those days, as I remember, you stood with the same company, as far as I knew, the whole four years. But then I think Id love to pick up on it again, Because you said this at the beginning, and I think its really important to get you to talk about it a little bit morethat in a sense, the framework that you learned here. Some of the cadets that were indictedif I dare say that wordwere indignant. Absolutelyyeah, it did. Lets come back to the time here at West Point during this period. For us, it wasI only knew I wanted to be an officer, and I wanted to be an Infantry officer, because thats what the vision and image around the Army that I received from my dad. The son of a truck driver from Brooklyn, Vincent Viola started electronic-trading firm Virtu Financial in 2008 and took the company public in 2015. So were you investigatedwas every cadet investigated for their commitment? And you are taught here that you have a responsibility unlike any other profession, because when you are engaged in combat and you are firing upon an objective and maneuvering to take it, you are going with forethought to make decisions knowing that theres a great chance the person that you send forward to execute either fire or maneuver is not going to come back. And it was a very interesting face-off between the protestorswho really were sort of socially enjoying the protestand that small minority of us who felt that this almost romantic attachment to the ideals of the country and took it very seriously. Now, hes sitting on the honor committee in judgment of his fellow cadets, right? It was a training, basic training location. In 2017, a buyer was in contract to buy the home from Viola for $80 million, The Real . It absolutely did, and as it, thankfully, always does, the Academy and itsthe accommodation of its Spartan core and Athenian, almost, force, or pilot flame, is almost this intellectual curiosity that must exist here and does, always lags and doesnt react as broadly, deeply, or as quickly. Right. They lived in a one-room house. It is a class that must be chronicled and studied at a granular level from a sociological and military perspective, because it camewe applied at probably the nadir of commitment to the military in the nation. It was a combination of hearthe had congenital heart disease that went undiagnosed, and just was rendered incapable. The place was enormously proud of itself. In the book, Lou Guttman, the previous chairman at the New York Mercantile Exchange, said Viola "exuded leadership. And much like the gestalt of the popular culture takes root, and it is least commonly denominated, people would just almost organically attract to antiwar protests. Panthers owner and Army secretary nominee Vincent Viola allegedly punched a concessions worker at a racehorse auction in Saratoga Springs, New York, on Aug. 8, according to a police report. It had to be temptingI mean tempting literally, but it had to temptyou had to look at it and think, Wow, Im going to go back, and Im going to go through this rigorous schedule, and theyre going to go off and have fun, and play, and listen to rock and roll, and. Well, I stood in the Reserves. And I think I have about 100, close to 100 classmates, who graduated with the class of 78many of them, many of them went on to have stellar military careers. Jan. 18, 2017. He was for several weeks President Donald Trump 's nominee for United States Secretary of the Army, before withdrawing from consideration. I was very blessed. But how does that really translate? I had an enormously fascinating experience around the honor scandal. The Corps has. In other words, the Corps has seen its better daysits not like it used to be. So there are somethere are a couple of capstones in that journey. Wonder when the last time the Panthers wrote Broward a rent check? But I remember there was a formation, and I remember there were a host of names called out to fall out at the end of the formation. Viola took the company public in April 2015. Im sure that Spring of 1976 through the Spring of 1977 was one of those periods. Oh, what did I do professionally? Ill veer off to a very interesting story. What can security professionals do today to offset the threat of a catastrophic cryptography failure? Runnersrunners and clerks, and my neighborhood had a good amount of runners and low-level Wall Street professionals. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Related by education: New York Law School. So as I remember, there was a period where cadets basicallycadets who were charged basically claimed that everyone cheated at the Academy, and the honor code wasnt being upheld. My dad used to always say, Freedom isnt free. Guess that was justthats kind of a little bit of background. Right, 1982the stock market rally begins in late August of 1982, and as we all know, the beginnings of long-term economic expansions dont feel like theyre going to be long-term economic expansions. So theyand this is my perception. Viola and other pre-IPO insiders continue to directly own units of Virtu LLC that are economically equivalent to Class A shares. And the captain said, Wellmy dad was not bold enough to say, Id like to bring them food or something. He would just figure outso the captain gave him a day pass to go and visit his family, and suggested that he bring some food and other supplies, sundries to them. Could be transferred and translated into other worlds. And Im sure it was enormously evolving around the subculture here or impactful on what was going on outside the gates. They were called, the term was used, Are you cool on honor? And I found this out later on as the scandal evolvedand. Its the same thing herethis is extremelyin the end its a very insulated, but positively reaffirming, environment. Now, whyd you get out of the Army? And I remember hearing that, in fact, a group of professors had seen identical submissions from cadets, and it was uncanny, and therefore, they began to investigate. So this family, from thisthey both came from the same village, my mom and dadfrom this little hamlet had over ten persons serving this new country in harms way. A graduate of the U.S. Army Ranger school, he served in the 101st Airborne Division and later attained the rank of Major in the Army Reserves. Viola and his wife Teresa have three adult sons and live in New York City. So Im sure people probably didnt have it as an academic priority like, lets say, the social sciences paper that we had to write our first class year. My dad served in combat in World War II, many of my uncles did. The honor committee became basically a full-time job for him, to the point where, as I remember, he missed many classes. They havent changed much, even til today, for hundreds of years, really. Find Vincent Viola's phone number, address, and email on Spokeo, the leading online directory for contact information. My dad hadnt been there since. For me, it was almost the opposite, because when I would go off-post, Id return to my neighborhood, which is very small, parochial, patriotic neighborhood, so I was heralded every time I would go home. Standing in formation, being of correct order, marching in formationso youre physicalizing on your leadership ability, and it was the same always. And my roommate at the time was a secretary to the honor committee, and so his life changed overnight. [2] Anyway, my dad did that, and in 1980 my dad took a massive heart attack19791980. So what class are you, did you graduate with here at West Point? They weren't immediately available for . The relationship between him and the nation was ephemeral, and so when youre raised around that, you really get a sense that there are principles at work and mechanisms at work much, much more important thantheyre gifts. In 1988, he founded The Independent Bank Group, a Texas-based regional bank which is listed on NASDAQ (IBTX). I think the exercise was handed in over the holiday period of 19. You transform to depths that youre not aware of. And it was a great point of honor for my grandfatherhe actually left the military as a noncommissioned officer of the Italian Army. Sure, sure. Viola is the owner of the NHL Florida Panthers. We were probably one of the most extraordinary in that regard. Beloved Husband to the Late Myrna (Baker) Viola. It simply says a cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, nor tolerate those who do. And remember, from the first day youre here, you understand what singularity isyou understand what singularity is. Mr. Viola is one of the nation's foremost leaders in electronic trading. He was for several weeks President Donald Trump's nominee for United States Secretary of the Army, before withdrawing from consideration. It caused, for me, a redoubling of my dedication to the Academy. He was a combat commander during Vietnam. 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