< Wall Street's Nerds: The World's Most Powerful Trading Executives

24. Manoj Narang
Chief Executive Officer
Mana Partners
Last year: 26

For quantitative trading firms, technology is typically a cost center. "My overriding objective is to take the technology and turn it into a profit center," Manoj Narang says. He worked on that model for 16 years with Tradeworx, a high frequency trading shop that he founded. Tradeworx's Thesys Technologies affiliate was recently designated the Securities and Exchange Commission's primary contractor for its massive transaction database, the Consolidated Audit Trail.

In October 2015, several months after leaving Tradeworx, Narang began anew with Mana Partners — he as CEO and chief investment strategist, with co-founder John Holena as president and chief information officer. Now up to about 40 people — the principals have 200-plus years of combined quant trading experience — the New York firm raised $1 billion for a hedge fund prior to its January launch. Narang, 47, believes he is differentiating his fund by "combining traditional quantitative investing — statistical arbitrage — with HFT." He says that with a couple of deals pending, the fintech side of the business is about to take off: "There is tremendous room for innovation in how asset management services are delivered."

 
The 2017 Trading Tech 40

1. Richard Prager BlackRock 2. Chris Isaacson Bats Global Markets 3. Bradley Peterson Nasdaq Methanol Gains Traction as an Alternative Energy Source Sponsored by CME Group May 5, 2025 4. Brad Levy MarkitSERV 5. Dan Keegan Citi

6. Glenn Lesko Bloomberg Tradebook 7. Bryan Durkin CME Group 8. Mayur Kapani Intercontinental Exchange 9. Mike Blum KCG Holdings 10. Raj Mahajan Goldman Sachs Group

11. Ronald DePoalo Fidelity Institutional 12. Nick Themelis MarketAxess Holdings 13. Jenny Knott NEX Optimisation 14. Billy Hult Tradeweb Markets 15. Rob Park IEX Group

16. Bill Chow & Richard Leung Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing 17. John Mackay (Mack) Gill MillenniumIT 18. Paul Hamill Citadel Securities 19. Eric Noll Convergex 20. Veronica Augustsson Cinnober Financial Technology

21. Tyler Moeller & Joshua Walsky Broadway Technology 22. Alasdair Haynes Aquis Exchange 23. Gaurav Suri Arcesium 24. Manoj Narang Mana Partners 25. Michael Chin & Neill Penney Thomson Reuters

26. Robert Sloan S3 Partners 27. Anton Katz & Stephen Mock AQR Capital Management 28. Donal Byrne Corvil 29. Stu Taylor Algomi 30. Alfred Eskandar Portware

31. Steven Randich Financial Industry Regulatory Authority 32. R. Cromwell Coulson OTC Markets Group 33. Peter Maragos Dash Financial 34. John Fawcett Quantopian 35. Donald Ross III PDQ Enterprises

36. Jennifer Nayar Vela Trading Technologies 37. Dan Raju Tradier 38. Susan Estes OpenDoor Trading 39. David Mercer LMAX Exchange 40. Oki Matsumoto Monex Group