< The 2015 Tech 50: Racers to the Edge

Robert Goldstein has been COO of BlackRock since July 2014. At the same time, he remains global head of BlackRock Solutions, the technology arm of the money management colossus, which as of March 31 had $4.8 trillion in assets. Goldstein was with that risk-focused systems business at its launch in 1999, five years after he joined the New York–based firm with an economics degree from Binghamton University, and has led it since 2009. Last year the unit generated $635 million in revenue, 10 percent more than in 2013 (whereas BlackRock’s revenue as a whole rose 9 percent, to $11.1 billion). Yet for futuristic insights, this 41-year-old leader among financial technology luminaries observes his 12- and 13-year-old children and their comfort level with programs like Google Docs, designed for simultaneous collaboration by teams of users. “In the workplace five people don’t work on one document at once — I work on it tonight, I e-mail it to you, and so on,” he says. The contrast tells him that “the next generation will think differently about how existing technology winds up being used and will think differently about investing, servicing clients, communicating and managing.” Changing technologies and behaviors are very much here-and-now issues for Goldstein. Big data, for one, is “beyond anything we’ve seen, and it’s going to continue to get bigger,” he says. “It will create a different expectation for what it means to do your job. Being a data scientist will wind up being part of everyone’s job.” In the immediate quest to improve fixed-income liquidity, BlackRock Solutions’ buy-side customer base leverages its Aladdin network to achieve greater transparency across multiple venues.

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The 2015 Tech 50

1. Jeffrey Sprecher Intercontinental Exchange 2. Catherine Bessant Bank of America Corp. The Rise of Oil Options: Why More Traders Are Getting Involved Sponsored by CME Group May 19, 2025 3. Phupinder Gill CME Group 4. Lance Uggla Markit 5. Robert Goldstein BlackRock

6. Shawn Edwards & Vlad Kliatchko Bloomberg 7. R. Martin Chavez Goldman Sachs Group 8. Deborah Hopkins Citi Ventures 9. Stephen Neff Fidelity Investments 10. Adena Friedman Nasdaq OMX Group

11. David Craig Thomson Reuters 12. Daniel Coleman KCG Holdings 13. Michael Spencer ICAP 14. Michael Bodson Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. 15. Charles Li Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing

16. Chris Concannon BATS Global Markets 17. Christopher Perretta State Street Corp. 18. Antoine Shagoury London Stock Exchange Group 19. Kevin Rhein Wells Fargo & Co. 20. Neil Katz D.E. Shaw & Co.

21. Lee Olesky Tradeweb Markets 22. Richard McVey MarketAxess Holdings 23. Seth Merrin Liquidnet Holdings 24. Robert Alexander Capital One Financial Corp. 25. Frank Bisignano First Data Corp.

26. John Marcante Vanguard Group 27. Joseph Squeri Citadel 28. Lou Eccleston TMX Group 29. Claude Honegger Credit Suisse 30. Chris Corrado MSCI

31. David Gledhill DBS Bank 32. John Bates Software AG 33. Michael Cooper BT Radianz 34. Gary Scholten Principal Financial Group 35. Sunil Hirani trueEX Group

36. Hauke Stars Deutsche BÖrse 37. Brian Conlon First Derivatives 38. Jim Minnick eVestment 39. Lars Seier Christensen & Kim Fournais 40. Tyler Kim MaplesFS

41. Jim McGuire Charles Schwab Corp. 42. Steven O'Hanlon Numerix 43. Sebastián Ceria Axioma 44. Yasuki Okai NRI Holdings America 45. Stephane Dubois Xignite

46. Mazy Dar OpenFin 47. Brian Sentance Xenomorph Software 48. Mas Nakachi OpenGamma 49. John Lehner BNY Mellon Technology Solutions Group 50. Jock Percy Perseus