AndreasPilavakis 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 FundedTrader, FinanceMagnates.com has learned.Pilavakisserved as head of operations at FunderPro for roughly19 months before departing in March. His new role, which he is performingremotely from Limassol, marks his first C-suite appointment after a four-yearcareer built almost entirely within Cyprus-based prop firms.From Prop Firm’s SupportDesk to C-SuitePilavakis'spath into prop firm leadership started in May 2022, when he joined The TradingPit as a customer support manager. Over the following two and a half years, herose to head of customer support and later moved into an operations managerrole before leaving the firm in August 2024.Within weeks,he joined FunderPro asoperations manager, a brand owned by Red Acre, the Malta-based technologycompany behind trading platform TradeLocker. At the time, Pilavakis said hisgoal was to achieve "operational excellence and efficiency, drivingscalability, and positioning the company as an industry leader by 2025."His title was later upgraded to head of operations before his departure thismonth."After nearly five years leading prop firm projects andbuilding operational frameworks in the industry, I felt ready for a newchallenge," Pilavakis told FinanceMagnates.com. "Moving into a positionwhere ownership and responsibility are core expectations, not justnice-to-have traits, felt like the natural next step."GOAT Funded Trader BuildsOut Futures InfrastructureGOAT FundedFutures is the dedicated futures arm of GOAT Funded Trader, a challenge-basedprop firm registered in Saint Lucia with a presence in Hong Kong. The parentcompany has been moving quickly on multiple fronts over the past year, launching itsown brokerage to restore official MetaTrader 5 access after licensing restrictionsdisrupted several rival platforms. BySeptember 2025, the company said it had surpassed $10million in total payouts to traders.The futuresdivision, launched roughly a year ago, focuses exclusively on regulated futuresmarkets including CME, CBOT, NYMEX, and COMEX. The firm says it offers fundingof up to $750,000 and uses an end-of-day drawdown model, which it claims ismore forgiving than the intraday trailing drawdowns common at competing firms. Pilavakissaid 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 andsupport the company's next stage of growth," he said.Competition Closes In onU.S. Futures LeadersGOAT FundedFutures has entered a segment that has grown considerably more crowded inrecent months. TradersYardlaunched futures-specific challenge programs in January 2026, with its CEO arguing that applyingforex-style rules to futures instruments creates confusion among traders andundermines performance. Just weekslater, The5ers rolledout futures prop offerings worldwide, including in the United States, expanding into territory long heldby American incumbents like TopStep, Apex, and MyFundedFutures.For theGOAT Funded Trader, hiring an operations executive who has hands-on experiencescaling prop firm infrastructure appears consistent with efforts to build thefutures division into a competitive product, rather than a secondary offering. WhetherPilavakis's background in CFD-based prop firm operations translates cleanlyinto futures, a structurally different business, is a question the firm willnow need to answer in practice.This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.