< The 2017 Tech 40

38. Michael Cooper
Chief Technology Officer
BT Radianz
Last year: 36

The ease of access and favorable economics of cloud computing only begin to explain the revolution it is enabling, according to Michael Cooper. The 54-year-old, who has been watching the cloud unfold since he joined Radianz in 2001, says the technology provides "the ability to implement significant changes quickly, to experiment ad infinitum and with more certainty." The startup's shared telecommunications infrastructure was a precursor of cloud utilities, like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, that emerged later in that decade. Radianz's specialization in financial services made it attractive to the U.K.'s BT Group, which bought the company from Reuters Group for $175 million in 2005. BT Radianz Cloud now offers a high-performance network connecting thousands of global institutions and market participants accessing applications and services from more than 400 providers. This year BT completed the purchase of IP Trade, a provider of unified communications technology for trading floors. Cooper, BT Radianz's chief technology officer since 2010, says that "it is obligatory for anyone in this industry to focus on security and the cyberthreat landscape," noting that BT commits significant resources to cybersecurity.

 
The 2017 Tech 40

1. Adena Friedman NASDAQ 2. Catherine Bessant Bank of America Corp. 3. Robert Goldstein BlackRock 4. Jeffrey Sprecher Intercontinental Exchange Methanol Gains Traction as an Alternative Energy Source Sponsored by CME Group May 5, 2025 5. Lance Uggla IHS Markit

6. Shawn Edwards & Vlad Kliatchko Bloomberg 7. David Craig Thomson Reuters 8. Michael Spencer NEX Group 9. Don Callahan Citigroup 10. Elisha Wiesel Goldman Sachs Group

11. Michael Bodson Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. 12. Terrence Duffy CME Group 13. Charles Li Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing 14. Sean Belka Fidelity Investments 15. Chris Concannon CBOE Holdings

16. Guy Chiarello First Data Corp. 17. Steven Lieblich Citadel 18. David Rutter R3CEV 19. Blythe Masters Digital Asset Holdings 20. Alfred Spector Two Sigma Investments

21. Neil Katz D.E. Shaw Group 22. Lee Olesky Tradeweb Markets 23. Richard McVey MarketAxess Holdings 24. David Gledhill DBS Bank 25. Seth Merrin Liquidnet Holdings

26. Antoine Shagoury State Street Corp. 27. Peter Brown & Robert Mercer Renaissance Technologies 28. Lou Eccleston TMX Group 29. Peter Cherecwich Northern Trust Corp. 30. Mike Chinn S&P Global Market Intelligence

31. Chris Corrado London Stock Exchange Group 32. Neal Pawar AQR Capital Management 33. Gary Norcross Fidelity National Information Services 34. Steven O'Hanlon Numerix 35. Sebastián Ceria Axioma

36. Brian Conlon First Derivatives and Kx Systems 37. Tyler Kim MaplesFS 38. Michael Cooper BT Radianz 39. Robert Schifellite Broadridge Financial Solutions 40. Jim Minnick eVestment