The 2016 Tech 50: Lou Eccleston

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27
Lou Eccleston
Chief Executive Officer
TMX Group
Last year: 28

Canada has become an attractive and competitive destination for financial market operators. The March 2015 launch of Aequitas NEO Exchange and Nasdaq’s December acquisition of Chi-X Canada were shots across the bow of long-established TMX Group and its flagship Toronto Stock Exchange. Twenty months into his run as TMX’s CEO, Lou Eccleston believes the incumbent has what it takes to beat back the newcomers. The former Bloomberg, Thomson Financial and McGraw Hill Financial executive regards TMX as “a Canadian institution with a global model.” He adds, “Global players come to us,” noting international participation in such TMX entities as the Natural Gas Exchange and the TSX Venture Exchange, which for start-ups has been an effective springboard to more-senior exchanges. In character with his 2010–’14 tenure as president of McGraw Hill’s S&P Capital IQ, where he built an in-house innovation hub, Eccleston, 59, is steering his company on a decidedly digital and disruptive course. TMX is “a technology-driven solutions provider that happens to operate markets,” he asserts. A year ago, soon after a strategic review that was one of his first actions, Eccleston opened the eXplore TMX Innovation Lab, which has a mission of “leveraging emerging and in-house technology and intellectual capital to create products and services that will provide competitive advantages to clients in Canada, across North America and around the world.” The lab is but one entry in a paper titled “The TMX Innovation Economy Partnership,” which catalogues dozens of internal and external technology initiatives, including support of the Canada-wide Accelerate Finance ecosystem and sponsorship of what is billed as “the world’s largest blockchain trade show,” debuting in September in Toronto. Two 2016 hires tell the tale of what Eccleston says is TMX’s “foundation in analytical-insight and intellectual-property businesses”: Anthony Di Iorio, a leader in Canada’s Bitcoin and blockchain community, as chief digital officer, and Tom Wadden, a former TD Bank technologist, as head of data science and analytics in the TMX Insights unit.

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The 2016 Tech 50