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The 2015 Trading Technology 40: Jonathan Ross
#4 Jonathan Ross, Chief Technology Officer, KCG Holdings
Despite its technological prowess, KCG Holdings hasn’t been immune to the declining trading volumes and low volatility that have challenged U.S. equity market makers. The Jersey City, New Jersey–based company — created by the July 2013 merger of high frequency trading pioneer Getco and executing brokerage Knight Capital Group — saw its third-quarter 2014 market-making revenue fall more than 30 percent year over year, to $166.6 million. The drop, however, was partly offset by growth in its algorithmic trading business. KCG added 50 new institutional clients during the quarter thanks to its Opportunistic algorithm, based on a Getco legacy product that incorporates “micro market structure signals from the proprietary trading side,” says chief technology officer Jonathan Ross. In November, KCG introduced Catch, a new algorithm designed to adapt to changing market dynamics and capture liquidity. “In its hunt for liquidity, the algo analyzes market data, tick by tick, to make very quick predictions for what it thinks the alpha is for the next second, half second or whatever it believes the appropriate amount of time is,” explains Ross, 46, a onetime video game programmer who was CTO of the Nasdaq Stock Market before joining Getco in 2007. He says KCG is expanding its presence in fixed-income markets, which includes its BondPoint corporate debt marketplace. “We’re extremely good at execution, and we don’t need balance sheet to do it,” adds Ross. “Firms that really care about execution are going to be looking to us more and more.”
See also Ross' profile in the 2013 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  | 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 |