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The 2015 Tech 50: Mazy Dar
The OpenFin CEO debuts on this year’s Tech 50 ranking at No. 46.


Start-ups may have advantages in terms of invention and agility, but “getting big banks and trading institutions to work with you is a challenge,” says Mazy Dar. “The bar is especially high when you’re a small firm addressing a mission-critical part of the infrastructure.” Dar, 39, has been toiling since 2010 as CEO of OpenFin, developing a new, financial-services-focused approach to desktop programming, and 2015 is shaping up as its breakthrough year. The 20-employee, New York–based company in April raised $3 million from Bain Capital Ventures, Pivot Investment Partners, Nyca Partners and 20 individuals, including ex-CEOs Cristóbal Conde of SunGard Data Services and Thomas Glocer of Thomson Reuters. At the time of the funding, 11 top banks and trading platforms were using OpenFin’s patent-pending software, which is an implementation of the HTML5 language based on the Google Chromium open-source browser project. Dar expects to have all “majors” on board by year-end. OpenFin addresses firms’ desire for simplified installations and upgrades and maximum performance — the speed and analytics demanded by traders — across all browsers and devices, while leveraging the latest advances coming out of Silicon Valley. “The ability to build once and run everywhere — with better user experience, performance and security, extending to mobile and tablet devices — is huge for this business,” says Dar, who was chief strategy officer of credit-derivatives-trading pioneer Creditex Group before its 2008 sale to Intercontintental Exchange, and then an ICE executive committee member. “It is a problem for any firm in the financial industry to deliver continuous innovation, and we solve that with a focus on capital markets.”
See the full story, “The 2015 Tech 50: Racers to the Edge.”
![]() 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 |