This content is from: Portfolio
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.”
 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 |