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The 2015 Trading Technology 40: Chris Isaacson
#6 Chris Isaacson, Global Chief Information Officer, BATS Global Markets
BATS Global Markets became one of the world’s biggest exchange operators when it completed its acquisition of Direct Edge Holdings in January 2014. It then proceeded to hit all of its integration milestones. As of January 2015 the combined company’s four equity markets as well as BATS Options were running on a single data center in Secaucus, New Jersey. The postmerger transition “asked a lot from our customers,” says Chris Isaacson, 36, executive vice president and global CIO. All went seamlessly enough that in November, Lenexa, Kansas–based BATS’s average daily matched volume of 1.25 billion shares amounted to 20.3 percent of the U.S. total, up from 10 percent a year earlier. The decision to maintain four exchanges — BATS’s BZX and BYX and Direct Edge’s EDGA and EDGX — went against conventional consolidation thinking. “We found that customers like the choice,” explains Isaacson, a member of ten-year-old BATS’s founding team of technologists; he served as chief operating officer from 2007 until last year. “They want the functionality difference.” BZX, for instance, ranks high in execution quality for stocks in the S&P 500, and EDGX attracts retail order flow from top discount brokerages. Meanwhile, BATS’s share of U.S. equity options doubled year-over-year, to 5.8 percent, in November. November was a peak month for BATS Chi-X Europe, with a 22.9 percent market share; its BXTR trade reporting service had a dominant 62.1 percent. In keeping with BATS’s “making markets better” motto, BXTR brings consolidated-tape-style price transparency to Europe. Also, says Isaacson, “We are working with the SEC to strengthen performance and disaster recovery.”
See also Isaacson's profiles in the 2013 Trading Technology 40 and the 2012 Trading Technology 30.
1  | 2  | 3  | 4  | 5  |
| Kevin Kometer CME Group | Richard Prager BlackRock | Raymond Tierney III Bloomberg Tradebook | Jonathan Ross KCG Holdings | Charles Vice Intercontinental Exchange |
6  | 7  | 8  | 9  | 10  |
| Chris Isaacson BATS Global Markets | Bradley Peterson Nasdaq OMX Group | Brad Levy MarkitSERV | Dan Keegan Citi | Ronald DePoalo Fidelity Institutional |
11  | 12  | 13  | 14  | 15  |
| Gerard Beatty Goldman Sachs Group | Gerald O'Connell CBOE Holdings | Brenda Hoffman TMX Group | Billy Hult Tradeweb Markets | Nicholas Themelis MarketAxess Holdings |
16  | 17  | 18  | 19  | 20  |
| Bina Kalola Bank of America Merrill Lynch | Gil Mandelzis EBS-BrokerTec (ICAP) | Steven Randich Financial Industry Regulatory Authority | Jerry Dobner GFI Group | Michael Liberman BlueMountain Capital Management |
21  | 22  | 23  | 24  | 25  |
| Bill Chow and Richard Leung Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing | Jamie Selway Investment Technology Group | Brad Katsuyama IEX Group | John Mackay (Mack) Gill MillenniumIT | Jamil Nazarali Citadel Execution Services |
26  | 27  | 28  | 29  | 30  |
| Robert Cornish International Securities Exchange | Tyler Moeller andJoshua Walksy Broadway Technology | Rishi Nangalia REDI Holdings | Manoj Narang Tradeworx, Thesys Technologies | Oki Matsumoto Monex Group |
31  | 32  | 33  | 34  | 35  |
| Alasdair Haynes Aquis Exchange | Veronica Augustsson Cinnober Financial Technology | Stu Taylor Algomi | Luís Otávio Saliba Furtado BM&FBovespa | Tal Cohen Chi-X Global Holdings |
36  | 37  | 38  | 39  | 40  |
| Donal Byrne Corvil | R. Cromwell Coulson OTC Markets Group | Alfred Eskandar Portware | Richard Korhammer SR Labs | Hazem Dawani OptionsCity Software |