The IPLAC Creator of the Year Award is given to honor the creative achievements, primarily in the Chicago metropolitan area, that are eligible for patent, copyright, or trademark protection. This year, IPLAC is proud to recognize Bruce Bond as the winner of the 2023 IPLAC Creator of the Year Award, for his achievements in the areas of patents, trademarks, industry recognition, and strong community engagement.
Bruce Bond’s Key Achievements
Bruce Bond is co-founder and CEO of Innovator Capital Management, LLC. Having cofounded PowerShares Capital Management in 2003, he is recognized as one of the pioneers of the ETF industry. His leadership, creativity, and entrepreneurial vision challenged conventional thinking about ETFs and blazed a trail that made way for the massive growth of what is known today as smart or strategic beta. In addition to being recognized for best-in-class products, Bruce has been named the ETF industry’s most influential person on multiple occasions. He is a thought leader and has been quoted in financial publications around the globe.
His company, Innovator Capital Management, LLC was formed in 2014, it is an SEC-registered investment advisor (RIA) based in Wheaton, IL. It was awarded ETF.com’s “ETF Issuer of the Year – 2019.” The firm is currently headed by ETF visionaries, Bruce Bond and John Southard, founders of one of the largest ETF providers in the world. Bond and Southard reentered the asset management industry to bring to market first-of-their-kind investment opportunities and products like the Innovator Defined Outcome ETFs™ series they felt would change the investing landscape and bring more certainty to the financial planning process.
Bruce Bond’s Impact on the Local Community
Innovator Capital Management, LLC (“Innovator”) is focused on delivering solutions inside the benefit-rich ETF wrapper, retaining many of the features that have contributed to the success of structured products, but with the added benefits of transparency, liquidity, elimination of credit risk and lower costs afforded by the ETF structure.
Innovator has won multiple awards for its innovative ETF solutions, including the WealthManagement.com ETF Award. The WealthManagement.com Industry Awards each year recognizes the firms and individuals who are bringing new innovations to market that make a real difference to the daily activities of financial advisors. The awards recognized new initiatives or enhancements to an existing program, product or platform produced within the 18-month period prior to submission. Wealth-Management.com noted that it was a record-breaking year for the number of entries, with nearly 350 firms submitting a total of more than 900 entries. Innovator also won the WealthManagement.com ETF Award for the third straight year despite unprecedented number of entries which recognized both quantitative measures and qualitative measures such as innovation, creativity, and new methods of delivery.
In addition to the WealthManagement.com ETF Award, Innovator ETFs has also received recognition from other industry groups and publications, such as ETF.com and the Fund Intelligence Mutual Fund and ETF Industry Awards.
These awards and education initiatives via webinars and certification highlight Innovator’s longstanding commitment to delivering innovative ETF solutions to investors and its success in meeting the needs of financial advisors and their clients.
Highlights of Innovator’s Patents and Trademarks
Innovator’s Defined Outcome ETF™ family includes Buffer ETF™, Floor ETF®, Stacker ETF™ and the Accelerated ETFs®. Additionally, Accelerated ETFs® are the world’s first ETFs to seek to offer a multiple of the upside return of a reference asset, up to a cap, with approximately single exposure on the downside over an outcome period. Having launched the first Defined Outcome ETF™ in 2018 — the flagship Innovator U.S. Equity Buffer ETF™ Suite – Innovator’s solutions allow advisors to construct diversified portfolios with known outcome ranges to aid in risk management and financial planning.
Built on a foundation of innovation and driven by a commitment to help investors better control their financial outcomes, Innovator holds the following patents and trademarks in its portfolio:
U.S. Patent No. D941,860, Display Screen with Graphical User Interface
U.S. Patent No. D941,837, Display Screen with Animated Graphical User Interface
U.S. Patent No. 11,334,950, System and Method for Managing Data for Delivering a Pre-calculated Defined Investment Outcome in an Exchange-Traded Fund
Accelerated ETFs®
Accelerated Plus ETF®
Accelerated Return ETFs™
Barrier ETF™
Buffer ETF™
Defined Outcome ETF™
Defined Outcome Bond ETF®
Define Your Future®
Enhanced ETF™
Floor ETF®
Innovator ETFs®
Leading the Defined Outcome ETF Revolution™
Managed Buffer ETF™
Managed Outcome ETF™
Premium Income Barrier ETFs™
Stacker ETFs™
Step-Up ETFs™