Long identified with Ameritrade’s founder — Omaha, Nebraska–based discount and online brokerage pioneer J. Joe Ricketts — TD Ameritrade is now two chief executives removed from its longtime CEO. But Fred Tomczyk, a veteran of TD Bank Financial Group who helped negotiate the 2005 merger that created TD Ameritrade and who moved into the top job when Joe Moglia scaled back and became chairman in 2008, embraces continuity. He not only has Moglia and Ricketts sitting on his board of directors, he also maintains the founder’s commitment to technology, which Tomczyk considers essential to “create solid, stable and reliable platforms for our clients.”
They generate the highest daily volumes in the business: 426,000 client trades per day in April, 15 percent more than in March and 9 percent more than in April 2009. When markets boomeranged in the May 6 “flash crash,” Tomczyk, 54, proudly boasts, “At no time were our clients unable to access our platforms.”
Although its roots are in retail, TD Ameritrade has a long tradition of raising its level of sophistication. Last year, for example, it acquired Chicago options trading specialist thinkorswim, whose latest tool, thinkOnDemand, integrates paper trading with back-testing. And there is thinkShare, a social media site for active traders. Tomczyk says continued investment in “innovation, infrastructure and security” will be critical for growth.
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