< The 2016 Trading Technology 40

13
Nicholas Themelis
Chief Information Officer
MarketAxess Holdings
Last year: 15

How are things going at MarketAxess Holdings? “We’re killing it!” says Nicholas Themelis, chief information officer of the New York–based fixed-income trading platform operator. Much of the enthusiasm these days revolves around Open Trading, the all-to-all protocol MarketAxess launched in 2012 in hopes of widening the circle of platform participants: It’s been gaining momentum amid liquidity concerns in the corporate-bond market. In fourth-quarter 2015, Open Trading’s volume doubled year-over-year, to $27.6 billion, and its liquidity providers, or price makers, increased to 469 from 307; its protocol was used on more than 13 percent of MarketAxess’s combined U.S. high-grade and high-yield volume, up from 7 percent. Much else at publicly held MarketAxess is going through the roof. For full-year 2015 revenue rose 15 percent from the previous year, to $303 million; pretax income jumped 25 percent, to $148 million; total trading volume was up 28 percent, to $979 billion; and MarketAxess’s share of the U.S. high-grade market was 16.8 percent, compared with 14.5 percent. Themelis, 52, points out that the company is making headway in Europe with Trax, a data and posttrade solutions provider that was called Xtrakter when MarketAxess bought it from Euroclear in 2012. “Regulations in Europe are pushing toward electronic trading, which requires good pretrade price transparency,” says Themelis, who joined the company in 2004 and was formerly chief information officer for North America and global head of fixed income technology at Barclays Capital. “With Xtrakter we acquired unique data capabilities, and data is fuel for e-trading.” He adds: “We have global clients. It’s not good enough to be great in the U.S. and just good in other places.”

 
2016 Trading Technology 40

1. Raymond Tierney III Bloomberg 2. Richard Prager BlackRock Methanol Gains Traction as an Alternative Energy Source Sponsored by CME Group May 5, 2025 3. Chris Isaacson BATS Global Markets 4. Jonathan Ross KCG Holdings 5. Bradley Peterson Nasdaq

6. Brad Levy Markit 7. Dan Keegan Citi 8. Ronald DePoalo Fidelity Institutional 9. Raj Mahajan Goldman Sachs Group 10. Ari Studnitzer CME Group

11. Mayur Kapani Intercontinental Exchange 12. Gerald O’Connell CBOE Holdings 13. Nicholas Themelis MarketAxess Holdings 14. Gil Mandelzis EBS BrokerTec (ICAP) 15. Bill Chow and Richard Leung Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing

16. Rob Park IEX Group 17. Philip Weisberg Thomson Reuters 18. John Mackay (Mack) Gill MillenniumIT 19. Robert Cornish International Securities Exchange 20. Paul Hamill Citadel Securities

21. Eric Noll Convergex 22. Tyler Moeller and Joshua Walsky Broadway Technology 23. Rishi Nangalia REDI Holdings 24. Veronica Augustsson Cinnober Financial Technology 25. Alasdair Haynes Aquis Exchange

26. Manoj Narang Mana Partners 27. Gaurav Suri Arcesium 28. Robert Sloan S3 Partners 29. Anton Katz and Stephen Mock AQR Capital Mgmt 30. Stu Taylor Algomi

31. D. Keith Ross Jr. PDQ Enterprises 32. Donal Byrne Corvil 33. Alfred Eskandar Portware 34. R. Cromwell Coulson OTC Markets Group 35. Masayuki Hosaka Rakuten

36. Peter Maragos and David Karat Dash Financial 37. Amar Kuchinad Electronifie 38. Jennifer Nayar SR Labs 39. Dave Snowdon Metamako 40. Dan Raju Tradier