< The 2015 Tech 50: Racers to the Edge

Running technology for Principal Financial Group, which has 19.9 million customers around the world, would seem to be enough of a handful for Gary Scholten, chief information officer since 2002 and head of corporate strategy since 2012. It takes an information technology team of 2,600, including 500 in India, to keep up with the systems development, operational and innovation requirements of this diversified investment management, retirement services and insurance enterprise with a total of $530 billion in assets under management. But Scholten, a 35-year veteran of the Des Moines, Iowa–based company, doesn’t confine his concerns and responsibilities to within the proverbial four walls of the firm. He is constantly on what might be called cyberalert, having gone so far as to call data security an obsession. “Everybody is responsible for security, not just the information security department,” Scholten, 57, declares. Indeed, Principal provides extensive security training to its nearly 15,000 employees, is an active member of the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center and supports legislation to encourage more sharing of threat intelligence. Scholten also worries about the future workforce, saying, “We are not graduating enough people in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and economic growth will be held back if we don’t address this.” He has rallied to the cause as a member of the Iowa Governor’s STEM Advisory Council (of which Google, IBM Corp. and Principal, among others, are corporate partners). A Principal product innovation with a public service flavor is the Retirement Wellness Score, which draws on behavioral economics to nudge clients toward improved later-life solvency. “We have this problem of people not being ready for retirement,” says Scholten. “We can positively disrupt that trend.”

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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