Vincent Viola is an American billionaire businessman and U.S. Army veteran. He was born in 1956 in Brooklyn, New York, to an Italian-American family. Viola graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1977 and later earned his J.D. from New York Law School. He began his career in finance at the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and later founded Virtu Financial in 2008, revolutionizing the trading industry with technological advancements. Viola is also the owner of the Florida Panthers of the National Hockey League (NHL).