< The 2015 Tech 50: Racers to the Edge

Given the increasingly high-tech nature of the exchange business, it seems only fitting for a market operator like Canada’s TMX Group to hire an accomplished financial technologist as CEO. But the choice was still something of a leap — a cross-border one — for Lou Eccleston, who took the helm last November after Thomas Kloet retired. A hard-charging trading and market data industry executive earlier in his career, Eccleston spent 14 years with Bloomberg, beginning in 1988, including six years as head of Bloomberg Tradebook. Then, in four years with Thomson Financial, he served as president of global sales, marketing and services and president of the banking and brokerage group. As of 2008 he was with McGraw Hill Financial; in his last four years there, as president of S&P Capital IQ, he created a Google-style innovation lab and characterized the culture as that of “a $1 billion start-up.” Eccleston hasn’t lost that spark. In June he launched the eXplore TMX Innovation Lab “to leverage our existing technology and human capital to incubate and develop new solutions for our clients.” He says, “We need to act like the little guy” and “People will view us as an entrepreneurial company.” The 58-year-old is wrangling with a highly diversified business portfolio, ranging from the flagship Toronto Stock Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange to energy and derivatives markets to technology assets like TMX Atrium and a microwave network it bought last year. Having recently completed a six-month organizational assessment, Eccleston says that “technology-driven solutions” and “a client-focused culture” will be among TMX’s hallmarks. “Building on the strong foundation that we have,” he adds, the emphasis will be on defining a well-integrated “TMX the company,” as opposed to “TMX the group of companies.”

See the full story, “The 2015 Tech 50: Racers to the Edge.”

 
The 2015 Tech 50

1. Jeffrey Sprecher Intercontinental Exchange 2. Catherine Bessant Bank of America Corp. Model Portfolios to Deliver Alternative Asset Exposure Sponsored by BlackRock April 29, 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