As a Systemically Important Financial Market Utility (SIFMU), OCC is focused on hiring, developing and retaining the best talent. Our mission is to promote stability and market integrity through effective and efficient clearance, settlement and risk management services while providing thought leadership and education to market participants and the public about the prudent use of products we clear. We must be doing something right, as we were named 2016 Clearinghouse of the Year by Global Investor/ISF Magazine.
The key to our success is our employees. We take a comprehensive approach to talent management with a focus on the hire to retire cycle and how we can support everything that happens in between. We aim to make sure our employees understand OCC's mission, how they fit into it, and ultimately how they're going to be evaluated, recognized and rewarded for their performance and contributions.
OCC's SIFMU designation means in part that it's especially important to take into consideration and act on the different regulatory obligations that OCC has. To serve market participants, we must have a strong and robust infrastructure from a technology perspective as well as through our risk management and controls, and we need smart people to lead these functions. Our talent acquisition begins not only with our interns and new hires, but also with those who are being developed and promoted within our organization. It's about getting the right people in the right jobs at the right time because when strategy, structure and culture are in alignment, that's when organizations achieve peak performance.
It's incumbent on the OCC talent management team to make sure we provide the resources and motivation for our colleagues to help them with their professional and personal growth. OCC is an iconic organization in Chicago that has been in existence for over 40 years and as the only equity derivatives clearinghouse for the U.S. exchanges, it's essential that we promote resiliency and operational excellence by being an innovator and thought leader within the capital markets and listed-options industry. We are building a learning and development framework at OCC that encompasses a variety of different areas. In particular, for employee development, OCC has launched our Foundations for All program, which aims to educate and inform our colleagues about how the options industry functions and OCC's critical role in it. Additionally, we have the Options Education Program which, over the course of six months, helps employees learn about OCC and the listed-options industry. Another initiative that we have is our OCC Academies. This is a quarterly speaker series where we bring in leaders from across the organization and throughout the industry to talk on specific subjects affecting the industry and creates an opportunity for our colleagues to learn from their peers.
As a risk management organization, OCC is committed to doing its part as an organization to also help those at risk. We're involved in philanthropic and charitable opportunities in the communities where our colleagues live and work, and have an Employee Give Back program to give them more opportunities to volunteer. One such organization OCC supports is A Leg To Stand On (ALTSO), which provides free prosthetic limbs and corrective surgery to children suffering from traumatic or congenital limb disabilities in the developing world. OCC was a proud sponsor for this year's ALTSO Rocktoberfest in Chicago on October 6.
OCC will continue its commitment to attracting and obtaining top talent for our organization. If you would like more information on OCC career opportunities, visit our Career Page. To learn more about OCC's thought leadership on industry issues, visit OCC's Blog.