Joe Ricketts

Joe Ricketts founded what became TD Ameritrade in 1975 as a small investment firm in Omaha, Nebraska. He pioneered telephone trading and later internet-based retail brokerage. TD Ameritrade became one of the largest online brokerages in America, serving millions of retail investors. The firm was later acquired by Charles Schwab in 2020 for $26 billion, creating one of the largest brokerage firms globally. Ricketts's early bet on democratizing access to financial markets through technology was vindicated by the online trading revolution of the 1990s-2000s. His willingness to invest heavily in technology infrastructure during the early internet era — when the outcome was far from certain — gave TD Ameritrade a durable technology platform that supported rapid growth as online trading became mainstream among retail investors across the United States.