Voice of reason: Spears Business graduate, attorney shares lessons about moving forward from FTX

Friday, October 23, 2026

Media Contact: Stephen Howard | Director, Marketing & Communications | 405-744-4363 | stephen.howard@okstate.edu

In May, Spears School of Business students gathered in a glass conference room to hear a guest speaker during Oklahoma State University’s annual Cowboys on Wall Street program.

Some might have expected a formal lecture about stocks and bonds.

Instead, they had lunch with Ryne Miller.

The OSU graduate’s riveting story prompted many questions from students and faculty who traveled from Stillwater to the 21st floor of his New York City office building.

“How do you make decisions when things don’t go as expected?”

“How do you approach business negotiations with celebrities?”

And, of course: “What was it like working with Sam Bankman-Fried?”

Yes, that Sam Bankman-Fried, the infamous founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

Miller’s career has been anything but ordinary since he earned his economics degree from Spears Business in 2004. The kid from Yukon, Oklahoma, grew into a tenacious attorney working for government entities and navigating the tremendous highs and lows of business in the Big Apple.

When Miller was the general counsel of FTX US, he had to be the voice of reason for a company in crisis. Moving forward, he turned those challenges into lessons not only for himself, but also for young professionals, like the wide-eyed students he met this spring.

“Students like to hear how a career transpires,” Miller said. “I try to show them, ‘Look, I’ve got all these years now that I’ve been working, and I seem to keep running into really interesting and fascinating things to do by just accepting the work that’s in front of me.’ You don’t really get to pick your plan, always.”

Today, Miller is a commodities and derivatives lawyer at multinational firm Morrison Foerster in Manhattan, but his path took wild twists and turns to get there.

It started, as many Cowboy career arcs do, in historic Gallagher-Iba Arena.

When the rowdy fans left after each basketball game, Miller stayed for hours as a student employee on the custodial staff. He also worked on the maintenance crew for OSU’s residential halls.

In the classroom, the hardworking honors student gravitated toward economics with inspiration from now-retired professor Keith Willett.

“He was fantastic,” Miller said. “He really went out of his way to help me with the economics major.”

After OSU, Miller graduated from the University of Oklahoma College of Law in 2007 and joined prominent firm McAfee & Taft in Oklahoma City.

He then obtained his Master of Laws degree from New York University, worked for a United States district court judge in Oklahoma and spent four years with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in Washington, D.C.

In 2021, Miller took a chance on a new way to build on his experience with the derivatives market.

Cryptocurrency had grown into a worldwide phenomenon, and a young CEO nicknamed SBF — Sam Bankman-Fried, the son of Stanford Law School professors — made an impression on Miller.

“He could fill up a room,” Miller said. “When he talked, people listened. Very smart guy with a lot of confidence.”

Bankman-Fried was a co-founder of FTX, headquartered in the Bahamas. An inspired Miller joined the New York City team as general counsel of FTX US, a subsidiary of the global company.

In the public eye, FTX was booming. Legendary NFL quarterback Tom Brady agreed to an endorsement deal. The NBA’s Miami Heat rechristened their venue as FTX Arena.

Then, the phone call came.

Miller and his wife had just welcomed their second child, a daughter, only 10 days before Miller picked up the phone on a Monday night in November 2022 to hear Joe Bankman’s voice.

Bankman-Fried’s father, a psychologist and attorney, had been an advisor for FTX.

The news was not good.

“Joe briefed me into this situation of what they would call the liquidity crisis, or the liquidity crunch,” Miller said. “There’s customers who want their assets back, and there’s not liquidity to return the assets at this time.”

Over the following days and months, news reports uncovered Bankman-Fried’s massive fraud scheme. He had covertly transferred billions of dollars in FTX customer funds to Alameda Research, his other trading firm. This was a surprise to customers and FTX employees, many of whom, like Miller, were not working at FTX’s Bahamas headquarters.

On that sleepless Monday night, Miller hadn’t yet unraveled the information, but alarm bells sounded in his mind. As his phone incessantly rang, he enacted a three-step crisis plan: finding facts, doing damage control and communicating with stakeholders.

“One, there’s understanding the story,” Miller said. “What do we know, what do we not know, and what do we prioritize learning as next steps? Alongside data gathering, you have to figure out how to stop the bleeding. Is there anything that’s getting worse that we can take an immediate step now to really mitigate? The third step beyond that becomes communications strategy. Who do we need to talk to, and what level of detail do they need?”

Many parties had questions: investors, shareholders, customers, regulators, employees, journalists and the public.

Miller also had to communicate with Bankman-Fried, advising him to file for bankruptcy.

“My last call with Sam was probably at 4 in the morning,” Miller said. “I was waiting for him to sign a document. He signs the document, and now, we’ve got what we need for the bankruptcy filing to start to take place.”

From there, customers needed their money back. Through the bankruptcy filing, Miller said he set up the infrastructure for thousands of attorneys and consultants to legally recover what assets they could and turn them into cash.

“I’m proud that we did that,” Miller said.

While Miller worked to make the situation right, Bankman-Fried was held accountable in court. Convicted of fraud and conspiracy, the former billionaire received a 25-year federal prison sentence in March 2024.

By that point, Miller had moved on from FTX. In the first few months after the crisis, he spent quality time with his family, traveling and soul-searching.

“I called it walking in the desert,” Miller said.

The stress of FTX could have deterred him from returning to big business, but Miller opened his own law firm. Now, he uses his legal expertise as a partner in Morrison Foerster’s Financial Services Group.

Miller doesn’t shy away from the turbulent times in his career. Whether speaking on corporate conference stages or in university classrooms, he uses his experiences to advise others. In June 2025, he even testified in front of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture about regulating digital asset markets.

This spring, Miller enjoyed the opportunity to reconnect with his alma mater during the annual Cowboys on Wall Street program. From May 11-16, participants earned academic credit while stepping into New York City’s fast-paced business scene, visiting sites such as Wall Street and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

“The Cowboys on Wall Street program gives students exposure to NYC, as well as a small glimpse at daily life as a working professional in the city,” said program instructor Dr. Eric Sisneros, assistant head of OSU’s Department of Finance. “Students also have the opportunity to meet with alumni in NYC and learn about their careers and journey to New York.

“Ryne captivated students with his backstory and motivated them to work hard and pursue their goals. We are very grateful to have amazing alumni in NYC, like Ryne, that made this trip so memorable for our students.”

When Miller was an OSU student, he couldn’t have possibly predicted how his career would unfold, but his academic foundation and critical thinking skills prepared him to stand up in the face of chaos.

He encouraged the Cowboys on Wall Street students to use their voices in meetings. What they have to say is valuable, he said.

“The more you know about what’s happening in the world and what the incentives and motivations are of the people working in it, the more useful you can be to whatever it is you’re trying to pursue,” Miller said. “It’s dogged persistence. Really be interested in what you’re trying to do.”

Story by: Hallie Hart | Engage@Spears magazine
Photos: Provided by Morrison Foerster, Eric Sisneros and Dave Carter