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The 2015 Trading Technology 40: Tal Cohen
#35 Tal Cohen, Chief Executive Officer, Chi-X Global Holdings
While Chi-X Europe, now part of BATS Global Markets (see Chris Isaacson, No. 6), shot to the top in pan-European equity trading, with market share exceeding 20 percent, other operations under the Chi-X Global Holdings umbrella, owned by a bank consortium, made similar inroads in Australia and Canada. Tal Cohen — Chi-X Global’s CEO since 2010 after two years heading Chi-X Canada and ten years with the Instinet unit of Nomura Holdings (which founded and still leads the Chi-X consortium) — sees Japan as an immediate growth opportunity and envisions his alternative exchange company’s future as that of a “serial global start-up.” Viewing the sprawling Asia-Pacific region as ripe for expansion, the 41-year-old says Chi-X will “advocate for positive market structure reform and acquire technologies to bring innovation, efficiency and, most importantly, transparency into that market.” A selling point, Cohen adds, is that New York–based Chi-X makes use of its own technology, which instills confidence among users. Three-year-old Chi-X Australia has an 18 percent market share. Chi-X Canada’s nearly 22 percent share includes the volume of the retail-focused CX2 platform, which was launched in September 2013 and accounts for 5 percent. At Chi-X Japan, in business since 2010, Nomura-Instinet veteran Makoto Nagahori was named president and CEO om February 2014 amid a surge of optimism about Abenomics’ effect on the markets. In July, the addition of Yamawa Securities Co. and Ark Securities Co. brought the number of trading participants to 23, and Chi-Match VWAP Cross, introduced in September, within a month was the fastest-growing, broker-neutral VWAP (volume-weighted average price) trade-crossing platform in Japan.
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 |