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The 2016 Tech 50: Michael Spencer
The ICAP CEO holds steady at No. 13 on this year’s Tech 50 ranking.

Long before “fintech” became a buzzword, Michael Spencer was charting a course in that direction for the interdealer brokerage, now known as ICAP, that he founded in 1986. Following acquisitions in the early 2000s of e-trading platforms BrokerTec Global and EBS, which were combined last year into EBS BrokerTec, and a ramp-up in posttrade services and R&D investments, London-based ICAP has been redefining itself as a “fintech firm” and “the world’s leading multiproduct global electronic network for over-the-counter products and posttrade services,” says Spencer, 61. To cap it off, ICAP is awaiting regulatory approvals to transfer its voice and hybrid brokering businesses to Tullett Prebon, and plans to rebrand itself as NEX Group. “Our whole focus as a management team will be on these higher-growth, technology-focused businesses,” says the CEO, noting that 79 percent of £1.2 billion ($1.7 billion)-in-revenue ICAP’s operating profit comes from what will be NEX activities. Spencer has his executive team lined up, including CEOs Jenny Knott of Post Trade Risk and Information (PTRI), Gil Mandelzis of EBS BrokerTec, Per Sjöberg of derivatives risk mitigation platform TriOptima and Steve Gibson of venture investment arm Euclid Opportunities. The Euclid portfolio included hedge fund and prime brokerage data platform ENSO Financial Analytics until April, when ICAP bought it outright for the PTRI division. Also this year, Euclid purchased a stake in Digital Asset Holdings (see Blythe Masters, No. 17). “We are not trying to disrupt but are working with the industry,” Spencer says of ICAP’s “practical approach” to blockchain strategy. “PTRI completed a proof-of-technology test of distributed ledger in February, so we are well under way in understanding and experimenting with this technology.” Spencer believes there are countless opportunities to improve financial market efficiency through data and capital management, as TriOptima is demonstrating with its portfolio compression service and OpenGamma, a Euclid portfolio company, is doing with central counterparty margin optimization tools. In June, EBS BrokerTec announced a three-year, $65 million deal to provide next-generation technology for China Foreign Exchange Trade System’s fixed-income and currency execution services. Spencer describes the project as “a significant platform which will play a key role in the future of the renminbi.”
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![]() 2. Jeffrey Sprecher Intercontinental Exchange ![]() 3. Lance Uggla Markit ![]() 4. Phupinder Gill CME Group ![]() 5. Shawn Edwards and Vlad Kliatchko Bloomberg ![]() 6. R. Martin Chavez Goldman Sachs Group |
![]() 7. Robert Goldstein BlackRock ![]() 8. Adena Friedman Nasdaq ![]() 9. Deborah Hopkins Citi Ventures ![]() 10. Daniel Coleman KCG Holdings ![]() 11. Stephen Neff Fidelity Investments ![]() 12. David Craig Thomson Reuters |
![]() 13. Michael Spencer ICAP ![]() 14. Michael Bodson Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. ![]() 15. Charles Li Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing ![]() 16. Chris Concannon BATS Global Markets ![]() 17. Blythe Masters Digital Asset Holdings ![]() 18. David Rutter R3CEV |
![]() 19. Neil Katz D.E. Shaw & Co. ![]() 20. Lee Olesky Tradeweb Markets ![]() 21. Richard McVey MarketAxess Holdings ![]() 22. Seth Merrin Liquidnet Holdings ![]() 23. Robert Alexander Capital One Financial Corp. ![]() 24. Brad Katsuyama IEX Group |
![]() 25. Antoine Shagoury State Street Corp. ![]() 26. David Gledhill DBS Bank ![]() 27. Lou Eccleston TMX Group ![]() 28. Andreas Preuss Deutsche BÖrse ![]() 29. Dan Schulman PayPal Holdings ![]() 30. Scott Dillon Wells Fargo & Co. |
![]() 31. Mike Chinn S&P Global Market Intelligence ![]() 32. Craig Donohue Options Clearing Corp. ![]() 33. Gary Norcross Fidelity National Information Services ![]() 34. Steven O'Hanlon Numerix ![]() 35. Sebastián Ceria Axioma ![]() 36. Michael Cooper BT Radianz |
![]() 37. Tyler Kim MaplesFS ![]() 38. Neal Pawar AQR Capital Management ![]() 39. David Harding Winton Capital Management ![]() 40. Chris Corrado London Stock Exchange Group ![]() 41. Brian Conlon First Derivatives ![]() 42. Jim Minnick eVestment |
![]() 43. Stephane Dubois Xignite ![]() 44. Mazy Dar OpenFin ![]() 45. Yasuki Okai NRI Holdings America ![]() 46. Kim Fournais Saxo Bank ![]() 47. Jock Percy Perseus ![]() 48. Robert Schifellite Broadridge Financial Solutions |
![]() 49. Brian Sentance Xenomorph Software ![]() 50. Pieter van der Does Adyen |