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The 2016 Trading Technology 40: Brad Levy

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

March 07, 2016

< The 2016 Trading Technology 40

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