< The 2016 Trading Technology 40

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Peter Maragos and David Karat
Chief Executive Officer and Chief Marketing Officer
Dash Financial
PNR

Best execution is particularly tough in options markets, which generate vast quantities of data in an increasingly complex trading environment, with 14 exchanges now operating in the U.S. “The buy side is under increasing pressure to understand best execution,” Peter Maragos says. “Essential to this is a comprehension of order-routing practices and how algorithms and routers meet challenges relating to performance and liquidity capture.” To Maragos and David Karat, co-founders of Dash Financial, these circumstances cry out for a neutral, technology-driven agency brokerage that serves the interests of client firms. They started to put the pieces together in 2009. Maragos, now 39, had spent about seven years as CEO of trading systems developer SDS Financial Technologies; Karat, 43, was with Investment Technology Group at that time, followed by a year with Credit Suisse. They laid the groundwork for Dash, in part with assets from SDS, in stealth mode and launched their New York–based venture in 2011. Touting what its founders call bespoke innovation, Dash developed a suite of algorithms and trading tools tailored to options market microstructure, as well as deliverables including “full transparency at the order level,” Karat says, taking advantage of technological advances like the HTML5 cross-platform programming language. “We crafted the most intelligent routers to harness the shifting sands in options markets at optimal economics for the client,” says Maragos, adding that Dash executes about 6 percent of all U.S. daily options volume. The company’s innovation prowess is literally on display in Dash360, a highly graphical data-visualization dashboard released in January that, in Maragos’s words, “redefines transparency in the U.S. equity and options markets.” Karat adds that institutional traders get “the full picture into how their orders are being routed and executed.”

 
2016 Trading Technology 40

1. Raymond Tierney III Bloomberg Methanol Gains Traction as an Alternative Energy Source Sponsored by CME Group May 5, 2025 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