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The 2015 Tech 50: Brian Sentance

The Xenomorph Software CEO debuts at No. 47 on this year’s Tech 50 ranking.

47
Brian Sentance
Chief Executive Officer
Xenomorph Software
PNR

Big data didn’t go by that name — if it was even perceptible — in 1995, when Brian Sentance joined the founding team of Xenomorph Software. In 2015 the 35-employee, London-based company is as well placed as any to observe big data’s impact and help the financial industry turn the technology to its advantage. Sentance says Xenomorph got from there to here by understanding firms’ information-processing challenges, which, he contends, revolve around database capabilities as much today as they did two decades ago. “Problems with spreadsheets and data management may look different today,” the 49-year-old asserts, “but they are fundamentally the same problems.” They are complicated, however, by the sheer quantity of financial and market information; management demands for intraday or near-real-time risk reports; and tighter auditing, regulatory and compliance requirements. These largely postcrisis realities have driven adoption by top-tier financial institutions of Xenomorph’s TimeScape systems for enterprise data management, analysis and decision support, all enhanced by connections to data sources including Bloomberg, Markit and Thomson Reuters and by visualization aids like those of Aqumin and Tableau Software. “Our database model has always been very adaptable and agile and designed to enable new asset classes and product innovation,” says Sentance, pointing out how the architecture was built to last. Xenomorph’s and Sentance’s roots are in derivative markets — he headed a team at J.P. Morgan that developed pricing models for equity derivatives. In 1993, Sentance completed his Ph.D. in interest rate risk optimization at the Centre for Quantitative Finance, Imperial College London. His interest in joining Xenomorph was piqued when co-founder and chief technical architect Chris Budgen, formerly of Bankers Trust Co.’s equity and interest rate derivatives businesses, contacted Sentance seeking “knowledge of the business side to go along with the mathematics,” the CEO recalls.

See the full story, “The 2015 Tech 50: Racers to the Edge.”


The 2015 Tech 50

1. Jeffrey Sprecher
Intercontinental Exchange
2. Catherine Bessant
Bank of America Corp.
3. Phupinder Gill
CME Group
4. Lance Uggla
Markit
5. Robert Goldstein
BlackRock
6. Shawn Edwards &
Vlad Kliatchko
Bloomberg
7. R. Martin Chavez
Goldman Sachs Group
8. Deborah Hopkins
Citi Ventures
9. Stephen Neff
Fidelity Investments
10. Adena Friedman
Nasdaq OMX Group
11. David Craig
Thomson Reuters
12. Daniel Coleman
KCG Holdings
13. Michael Spencer
ICAP
14. Michael Bodson
Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.
15. Charles Li
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing
16. Chris Concannon
BATS Global Markets
17. Christopher Perretta
State Street Corp.
18. Antoine Shagoury
London Stock Exchange Group
19. Kevin Rhein
Wells Fargo & Co.
20. Neil Katz
D.E. Shaw & Co.
21. Lee Olesky
Tradeweb Markets
22. Richard McVey
MarketAxess Holdings
23. Seth Merrin
Liquidnet Holdings
24. Robert Alexander
Capital One Financial Corp.
25. Frank Bisignano
First Data Corp.
26. John Marcante
Vanguard Group
27. Joseph Squeri
Citadel
28. Lou Eccleston
TMX Group
29. Claude Honegger
Credit Suisse
30. Chris Corrado
MSCI
31. David Gledhill
DBS Bank
32. John Bates
Software AG
33. Michael Cooper
BT Radianz
34. Gary Scholten
Principal Financial Group
35. Sunil Hirani
trueEX Group
36. Hauke Stars
Deutsche BÖrse
37. Brian Conlon
First Derivatives
38. Jim Minnick
eVestment
39. Lars Seier Christensen & Kim Fournais
40. Tyler Kim
MaplesFS
41. Jim McGuire
Charles Schwab Corp.
42. Steven O'Hanlon
Numerix
43. Sebastián Ceria
Axioma
44. Yasuki Okai
NRI Holdings America
45. Stephane Dubois
Xignite
46. Mazy Dar
OpenFin
47. Brian Sentance
Xenomorph Software
48. Mas Nakachi
OpenGamma
49. John Lehner
BNY Mellon Technology Solutions Group
50. Jock Percy
Perseus

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