What's the difference between a maker and a taker fee?
It's about who provides the liquidity. A maker order posts a price and waits on the book. It adds liquidity, and pays 0.5%. A taker order grabs a price already sitting there. It consumes liquidity, gets instant execution, and pays 1%. Patience, when the read allows it, is literally cheaper.
The order book, in one image
Picture the market as a wall of standing offers: bids waiting to buy, asks waiting to sell. Post your own offer on that wall and wait, you're a maker; the market got deeper because of you, and the fee discount is your thank-you. Take an offer off the wall for instant execution, you're a taker; convenience has a price, and it's the extra half percent.
How your CEO chooses
It's a speed-versus-cost call, made per trade. A slow-moving market with a stable read? Post maker and let the fill come, the cheaper half of the fee schedule compounds over a season. News breaking, price running away from the edge? Take it now, a vanished opportunity costs more than half a percent ever will.
Why it's worth knowing as Chair
Fees appear itemized in your cycle report, maker and taker distinguishable at a glance. A fund whose fills lean maker is a fund whose CEO is being patient on your behalf, one more small discipline you can verify in the receipts rather than take on faith.