John founded Katovich & Associates in 2001, which later became the Katovich Law Group, representing corporations, LLCs, new businesses and non-profits. He has a wide range of experience including general business, securities trading and regulation, arbitration, high tech and IP related matters, business foundation, teaching and consultation. John is the co-founder of two for-profit companies, and two non-profit foundations, and is still an active participant in their direction and operations. He is also the co-holder of a patent for a trading method of combining assets and their derivatives via electronic methods. John also helped in the design of the Automated Credit Exchange - the precursor to the CEE.

John was Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary at the Pacific Stock Exchange for eleven years, where he was responsible for all aspects of the legal, membership, surveillance, compliance, regulation, arbitration, and general corporate matters involving a corporation with over 500 employees and several hundred member firms. He was also responsible for new product and partnership development for the PCX. John represented the Exchange before the SEC, CFTC and Congress, and was a member of various self-regulatory committees shaping rules and regulatory policies impacting the trading exchanges. He was also a member of the Securities Industry Committee on Arbitration, which developed and monitored the rules and policies concerning all customer and member arbitrations throughout the U.S. Prior to that, John was the Senior Compliance Attorney enforcing the rules and regulations of the trading floors, following two years as an Assistant Specialist trading equity stocks. He began his legal career in a civil litigation firm in Chicago, Illinois.

John left the PCX to take the position of Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary for OptiMark Technologies, which developed and patented multiple computer-based methods for improving liquidity and efficiency in auction markets. Following that, he became Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary at ePIT Systems, a leading enterprise-class software vendor of trading-engine systems. In both companies he was a member of the Executive Management Team, and served as a dealmaker, strategist, manager, and policy maker with expertise in funding, licensing, human resources and IP related issues.

John is currently a Professor at Presidio School of Management, teaching Law and Capital Markets in the MBA curriculum. He was also an Adjunct Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught Options Trading and Regulation, and served on a special teaching assignment at INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France. He has been a speaker and participant in front of the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Banking and Financial Services – including the Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Securities and Government-Sponsored Enterprises, participated as an exchange team member in front of the U.S. Supreme Court regarding arbitration, and was a member of the Bay Area General Counsel Association for 14 years.

John also provides consulting services to emerging/developing sovereign nations for Capital Market development, as well as training in supervision, compliance and regulation programs.

John is a graduate of Southern Illinois University School of Law (1979) and also attended John Marshall Law School. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1976). He completed the Executive Program on Negotiation at the Harvard Business School in 1996, and received his NASD Series 7 License. He is licensed to practice law in the state and federal district courts in both California and Illinois.

John currently serves on the Boards of The BEAM Foundation, Spooz, Inc., Peter James Side By Side Trading, and Mentoropolis Foundation.

John lives in Oakland with his wife Lisa and two children, Kiefer, currently attending Stanford University, and Scout, currently at The College Preparatory School in Oakland.