< The 2014 Tech 50: Moving Out of the Lab and Into the Cloud

Lance Uggla was never one to hide his aspirations of disrupting the old order in financial information and technology services. Exactly how Markit, which the Canadian-born entrepreneur founded in 2003 as a credit derivatives pricing service, would execute that strategy was not always so transparent. With the London-based company’s $1.3 billion June IPO in the U.S., the veil is lifted. The registration statement said Markit has more than 3,000 institutional customers globally and listed units or products of Bloomberg, ICAP and Intercontinental Exchange among a sampling of competitors. It also revealed that 2013 revenue from Markit’s information, processing and solutions divisions totaled $948 million. Up 10 percent from 2012, the figure is nearly one eighth that of Bloomberg, with which Uggla has been known to spar. He has pointed out that privately held Bloomberg has roughly as many technologists as Markit has employees. Of Markit’s 3,200 employees, 1,100 work in information technology. Another contrast: Bloomberg rarely makes acquisitions; Markit made seven from 2011 through 2013 and this year added trade-order- and portfolio-management-software company thinkFolio and tax-reporting servicer Compliance Technologies International. Uggla, 52, says a key to Markit’s success is that more than 2,000 of its employees are shareholders and “think like owners,” resulting in “an institutionalized culture of entrepreneurship.”

 
The 2014 Tech 50

1 Dave Cross	1	3 IAN CURCIO 2011	4 FayFoto/Boston	5 Teri Pengilley
Thomas Secunda Bloomberg	Jeffrey Sprecher Intercontinental Exchange	Catherine Bessant Bank of America Corp.	Stephen Neff Fidelity Investments	Lance Uggla Markit
6	7	8 Photographer:Charlie Simokaitis	9	10 Mark McQueen
Robert Goldstein BlackRock	David Craig Thomson Reuters	Phupinder Gill CME Group	Anna Ewing NASDAQ OMX Group	R. Martin Chavez Goldman Sachs Group
11	12	13	14	15 Christopher Elston
Deborah Hopkins Citi Ventures	Dan Mathisson Credit Suisse	Daniel Coleman KCG Holdings	Michael Spencer ICAP	Michael Bodson Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.
16	17	18 Todd Plitt	19	20
Joe Ratterman BATS Global Markets	Dominique Cerutti Euronext	Ron Levi GFI Group	Gaurav Suri D.E. Shaw Group	Charles Li Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing
21 Larry Lettera/ Camera 1	22	23	24 XT	25
Lou Eccleston S&P Capital IQ	Lee Olesky Tradeweb Markets	Richard McVey MarketAxess Holdings	Seth Merrin Liquidnet Holdings	Antoine Shagoury London Stock Exchange Group
26 Production	27 Wayne R. Martin	28	29 Thorsten Jansen	30 Adam B. Auel
Christopher Perretta State Street Corp.	Kevin Rhein Wells Fargo & Co.	Peter Carr Morgan Stanley	Hauke Stars Deutsche Börse	Robert Alexander Capital One Financial Corp.
31	32	33 Paul Elledge	34	35 Stephen Brashear
David Gershon SuperDerivatives	Chris Corrado MSCI	Joseph Squeri Citadel	Tanuja Randery BT Global Services	John Bates Software AG
36	37	38	39 Photo Credit: Kevin Irby	40
Gary Scholten Principal Financial Group	David Gledhill DBS Bank	Simon Garland Kx Systems	Cristóbal Conde FinTech Innovation Lab	Jeff Parker EidoSearch
41	42 Jeff Smith Photo	43	44	45
Kim Fournais & Lars Seier Christensen Saxo Bank	Kenneth Marlin Marlin & Associates	Tyler Kim MaplesFS	Jim McGuire Charles Schwab Corp.	Jim Minnick eVestment
46	47	48 tomohisa ichiki	49 David Poultney	50 A.E. Fletcher Photography
Steven O’Hanlon Numerix	Sebastián Ceria Axioma	Yasuki Okai Nomura Research Institute	Niki Beattie Market Structure Partners	Mas Nakachi OpenGamma