< The 2016 Trading Technology 40

Digital transformation in finance and other industries might appear to occur at light speed, but “start-up businesses take a long time,” says Alasdair Haynes. He learned that lesson as head of trade-crossing pioneer Investment Technology Group’s international business from 1998 to 2009 and as CEO of Chi-X Europe, which BATS Global Markets acquired in 2011. He’s living through it again as CEO of Aquis Exchange, which went live in November 2013 and is challenging incumbents like Chi-X and London Stock Exchange Group in 14 European markets. Patiently sticking to a strategy that combines a novel subscription pricing model with technology sales to other venues, the 56-year-old concedes that progress is “taking longer than we would have liked.” Growth is accelerating — London-based Aquis quadrupled its market share in 2015 — but it is still below 1 percent. Haynes is aiming for another quadrupling this year, which would be a momentum boost, but, he adds, “the type and quality of our business is more important than market share. We haven’t had an outage in two years, which very few can say.” He is making a strong pitch to the buy side, which under pending Markets in Financial Instruments Directive revisions (MiFID II) will be accountable for best execution at levels that Aquis is delivering. “We are one of the few firms disappointed that MiFID is being delayed,” Haynes says. Aquis’s first software-licensing deal is with A2X, an upstart South African market; Haynes believes his “complete turnkey solutions” will appeal to other exchanges looking for cost-efficient alternatives to the likes of Nasdaq Market Technology and LSEG’s MillenniumIT. European exchanges’ move to the equivalent of the U.S. consolidated tape promises a new “data revenue stream” for Aquis, which Haynes anticipates in 2017–’18.

 
2016 Trading Technology 40

1. Raymond Tierney III Bloomberg 2. Richard Prager BlackRock Fireside Chat: Fixed Income Market Structure Evolution Sponsored by Jane Street May 15, 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