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The 2015 Tech 50: Lars Seier Christensen and Kim Fournais
The co-CEOs of Saxo Bank climb to No. 39 on this year’s Tech 50 ranking.

In 2014, for the second year in a row, Saxo Bank doubled its net profit, this time to 381 million Danish kroner ($56.7 million). That’s strong vindication for the strategic shift that founders and co-CEOs Lars Seier Christensen, 52, and Kim Fournais, 49, made three years ago. The business, a pioneering online brokerage at its start in 1992, converted to a bank in 2001. After it diversified into real estate and asset management with poor results, the two leaders in 2012 refocused their energies on trading innovation. Ahead of most financial institutions, Hellerup, Denmark–based Saxo embraced HTML5, a cross-platform programming language that is at the heart of SaxoTraderGO, a system introduced in May for multi-asset-class trading on any device, desktop or mobile. Touted as “the foundation of the trading platform of the future,” SaxoTraderGO is accompanied by OpenAPI, an application programming interface that will be available to white-label users of Saxo technology as well as external developers later this year. “We believe other banks will adopt this methodology quickly, as it is a way of future-proofing and keeping cost down,” says Christensen. “Unless the incumbents keep up with the pace of innovation and continue to improve the client experience, disruptive forces will seek to fill the void.” One of Saxo’s premier white-label customers, Citi, said in May that it is selling off part of its foreign exchange business. As a result, Saxo is taking on Asia-Pacific clients of CitiFX Pro, who Christensen says will be offered “investment diversification possibilities via our multiasset, cross-collateralized, single-account offering,” not to mention SaxoTraderGO.
See the full story, “The 2015 Tech 50: Racers to the Edge.”
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![]() 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 |