< The 2016 Tech 50

Nineteen years ago Jeffrey Sprecher paid $1 for Continental Power Exchange. Growing that test bed for electronic energy trading into Intercontinental Exchange, which in the first quarter of 2016 set records for revenue ($1.2 billion) and net income ($369 million), required quite a few leaps and bounds, not least the 2013 acquisition of NYSE Euronext for $11 billion. But the journey was methodical, if not entirely linear, as Sprecher assembled his global complex of 11 exchanges serving nine asset classes, along with six clearinghouses. Methodical, too, is the ICE chairman and CEO’s approach to the blockchain technology that many financial industry executives are trying to make sense of. “A lot of institutions in financial services are talking about how to deploy blockchain,” Sprecher, 61, says. “But the real value may be in the work toward common standards, a common vernacular.” Among the obstacles that blockchain, or distributed ledger, technology must overcome are laws and processes predicated on the existence of a definitive “golden record” for any transaction, he notes. “We will see an evolution rather than a revolution, but the work being done is interesting, as it has the industry talking about how to take costs out of the settlement system,” he explains. “To do that, the first thing we have to do is agree to a common set of standards.” In the here and now, the New York Stock Exchange in May officially launched Pillar, its unified technology platform for equities and options. “We’re getting better matches, better uptake from the industry, and we’re growing our market share,” Sprecher says. “Equity trading has evolved to the point that people thought more complexity would help. Frankly, we didn’t understand the complexity, and we said, ‘Let’s not do it,’?” opting instead to build a simpler architecture from scratch. ICE is also implementing an instant messaging system — for traders to communicate within the bounds of compliance requirements — and developing clearinghouse risk models. In June, six months after acquiring Interactive Data Corp. for $5.2 billion, ICE combined IDC and other data and analytics assets in an expanded ICE Data Services subsidiary “to offer clients a more complete, consolidated view of the markets,” according to Sprecher.

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The 2016 Tech 50

1. Catherine Bessant Bank of America Corp. 2. Jeffrey Sprecher Intercontinental Exchange Methanol Gains Traction as an Alternative Energy Source Sponsored by CME Group May 5, 2025 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