Andreas Pilavakis has left FunderPro to take the role of Chief Operating Officer (COO) at GOAT Funded Futures, the futures-focused division of prop trading firm GOAT Funded Trader, FinanceMagnates.com has learned.

Pilavakis served as head of operations at FunderPro for roughly 19 months before departing in March. His new role, which he is performing remotely from Limassol, marks his first C-suite appointment after a four-year career built almost entirely within Cyprus-based prop firms.

From Prop Firm’s Support Desk to C-Suite

Pilavakis's path into prop firm leadership started in May 2022, when he joined The Trading Pit as a customer support manager. Over the following two and a half years, he rose to head of customer support and later moved into an operations manager role before leaving the firm in August 2024.

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Within weeks, he joined FunderPro as operations manager, a brand owned by Red Acre, the Malta-based technology company behind trading platform TradeLocker. At the time, Pilavakis said his goal was to achieve "operational excellence and efficiency, driving scalability, and positioning the company as an industry leader by 2025." His title was later upgraded to head of operations before his departure this month.

"After nearly five years leading prop firm projects and building operational frameworks in the industry, I felt ready for a new challenge," Pilavakis told FinanceMagnates.com. "Moving into a position where ownership and responsibility are core expectations, not just nice-to-have traits, felt like the natural next step."

GOAT Funded Trader Builds Out Futures Infrastructure

GOAT Funded Futures is the dedicated futures arm of GOAT Funded Trader, a challenge-based prop firm registered in Saint Lucia with a presence in Hong Kong. The parent company has been moving quickly on multiple fronts over the past year, launching its own brokerage to restore official MetaTrader 5 access after licensing restrictions disrupted several rival platforms.

By September 2025, the company said it had surpassed $10 million in total payouts to traders.

The futures division, launched roughly a year ago, focuses exclusively on regulated futures markets including CME, CBOT, NYMEX, and COMEX. The firm says it offers funding of up to $750,000 and uses an end-of-day drawdown model, which it claims is more forgiving than the intraday trailing drawdowns common at competing firms.

Pilavakis said he is looking to put his operational track record to work at the new firm. "I'm excited to contribute my experience to help streamline operations and support the company's next stage of growth," he said.

Competition Closes In on U.S. Futures Leaders

GOAT Funded Futures has entered a segment that has grown considerably more crowded in recent months. TradersYard launched futures-specific challenge programs in January 2026, with its CEO arguing that applying forex-style rules to futures instruments creates confusion among traders and undermines performance.

Just weeks later, The5ers rolled out futures prop offerings worldwide, including in the United States, expanding into territory long held by American incumbents like TopStep, Apex, and MyFundedFutures.

For the GOAT Funded Trader, hiring an operations executive who has hands-on experience scaling prop firm infrastructure appears consistent with efforts to build the futures division into a competitive product, rather than a secondary offering.

Whether Pilavakis's background in CFD-based prop firm operations translates cleanly into futures, a structurally different business, is a question the firm will now need to answer in practice.