This content is from: Portfolio

The 2016 Trading Technology 40: Brad Levy

No. 6 Brad Levy, Head, Processing Division, Markit

6
Brad Levy
Head, Processing Division
Markit
Last year: 8

Since Markit went public in 2014, the London-based financial data and services company has reported three neatly defined streams of revenue: information, processing and solutions. They added up to $1.1 billion in 2015, 7 percent higher than in 2014, yielding a healthy 45 percent profit margin. However, Markit, founded 13 years ago in a barn in suburban St. Albans, is not fully described by its accounting buckets. Fluidity and flexibility rule in an entrepreneurial style instilled by founder and CEO Lance Uggla; Brad Levy fit right in when he joined in 2012 after 17 years with Goldman Sachs Group. The 45-year-old is currently head of processing, the division (2015 revenue: $256 million) anchored by over-the-counter derivatives processor MarkitSERV, of which he is CEO. But he wears other hats. In October he took charge of WSO — a unit serving the syndicated loan market, known as Wall Street Office when it was acquired in 2008 — that nominally resides in the solutions division. “The world is looking to make the loan market more efficient, and we are well positioned,” Levy says. After the WSO transfer and other moves, including the 2015 purchase of foreign exchange processor DealHub, Levy oversees some 1,000 of Markit’s 4,000 employees and 34 percent of revenue, while extending the firm’s asset-class coverage, front-to-back-office reach and buy- and sell-side penetration. He is also Markit’s point person on messaging collaboration — Markit sold its chat platform to Symphony Communication Services in 2014, and Levy is a Symphony Foundation director. Add to those responsibilities cloud and open-source initiatives and the blockchain. “There are a dozen of us on what we call the chain gang,” he says. “We are talking to all providers of blockchain technology.” Anticipating that it will be a “net beneficiary” of distributed ledgers, Markit has gone into “execution mode” with proofs of concept, Levy says: “It can help us in a few of our segments and may be a seismic game changer five to ten years out.”

2016 Trading Technology 40

1. Raymond Tierney III
Bloomberg
2. Richard Prager
BlackRock
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

Related Content