He is one of the most powerful figures in the world of finance - a visionary who pioneered the modern futures industry and launched the International Monetary Market (IMM).

A Holocaust survivor, Leo Melamed had barely begun the first grade in 1939 when he and his parents fled their native Poland one step ahead of the oncoming Nazi juggernaut. Crossing Siberia en route to a brief stay in Japan - just months before Pearl Harbor - the family arrived in the United States to begin life anew. They settled in Chicago, where young Leo became a product of the inner city and embraced his new country and its culture.

Seeking part-time employment while attending law school, Leo Melamed answered a classified ad that would change his life. Hired by what he presumed was a law firm named Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Bean, he found himself on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. "I was Alice stepping through the Looking Glass into a world of not just one Mad Hatter, but hundreds.

The shouting among the traders, the movement of their bodies and hands, captivated me like nothing before ... there was a life force on that floor that was magical and exciting, and though I didn't understand what was going on, I wanted to be a part of it.".

Leo Melamed became much more than just a part of it. From modest beginnings as a pork belly trader, he led the Chicago Merc for the next quarter of a century, introducing finance to an industry that was the exclusive domain of agriculture. As his reputation as a financial genius grew, so did the tales of his larger-than-life personality. In Leo Melamed: Escape to the Futures, you'll meet the man behind the legend.