This content is from: Portfolio
The 2015 Tech 50: Brian Sentance
The Xenomorph Software CEO debuts at No. 47 on this year’s Tech 50 ranking.
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.”
 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 |