< The 2015 Trading Technology 40: Going with the Flow

Until about a year ago, Markit’s IT functions reported to chief operating officer Chip Carver (No. 7 last year). Ahead of its IPO filing in May 2014, the financial information services company dropped the COO role and reorganized around three product divisions. Each has its own senior-level technologists, explains Brad Levy, who as the New York–based CEO of MarkitSERV oversees the processing division’s over-the-counter derivatives and loan-trading services. (The other divisions are information, now co-headed by Carver, and solutions.) The upshot is that Markit, with more than 3,000 employees and a similar number of customers, is a technology enterprise through and through. Levy says 600 of the 750 people working for him are in tech and operations; he and his peers have entrepreneurial mandates. In third-quarter 2014 processing revenue increased 13 percent year-over-year, to $72 million, while Markit’s $270 million total also was up 13 percent. Regulatory complications in OTC markets “have been good for us,” Levy says. “We are unique in that we can do swaps trade reporting globally, in all asset classes and every major jurisdiction on a common platform.” Levy, 44, spent 17 years with Goldman Sachs Group before joining Markit’s Boulder, Colorado, distribution products team in 2012. Formerly head of Goldman’s principal strategic investments group, Levy was an influential adviser to e-finance start-ups including Markit, which CEO Lance Uggla founded in 2003. “I met Lance early on,” Levy says. “In a way, we have come full circle.”

 
The 2015 Trading Technology 40

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 Zef Nikolla	8	9	10
Chris Isaacson BATS Global Markets	Bradley Peterson Nasdaq OMX Group	Brad Levy MarkitSERV	Dan Keegan Citi	Ronald DePoalo Fidelity Institutional
11 Mark McQueen	12	13	14	15 Margaret Fox
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 Martin H. Simon	19 Todd Plitt	20 A.E. Fletcher Photography
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 Photographer:http://www.digitalh	23	24 Dennis Degnan	25 Paul Elledge
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 Picasa	29 Andrew Harrer	30 Takashi KATO
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 unknown	33 Douglas Kurn	34 Luludi/LUZ	35 William Neumann Photography
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