< The 2015 Tech 50: Racers to the Edge

When KCG Holdings was looking for a new CFO last year, CEO Daniel Coleman knew the high-tech brokerage had found its guy in financial software entrepreneur Steffen Parratt. “He had worked at Merrill Lynch and Citigroup, but it was the fact that he had written software and deployed it, and got other people to do it with the exact purpose of making the financial departments more efficient, that hit home for me when I interviewed him,” says Coleman, who has presided over Jersey City, New Jersey–based KCG since it was created by the July 2013 merger of his company, Chicago-based high frequency trading pioneer Getco, and broker-dealer Knight Capital Group. Fully half of KCG’s 12-person management team has engineering, math or computer science backgrounds and can write code. “It’s very important for us to have technologically literate people throughout the firm because we’re trying to leverage technology in everything we do,” says Coleman, who has an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and turns 51 in August. Like many of its competitors, KCG saw a slight drop in market-making revenue during the first quarter from the last three months of 2014, as U.S. equity-trading volumes fell, but its global execution services business enjoyed a one-time gain on the “opportunistic sale” in March of its Hotspot electronic foreign exchange platform to BATS Global Markets for $365 million in cash. Following the sale — the proceeds of which KCG is using to buy back shares in a modified Dutch auction — KCG has approximately 1,000 employees and makes markets and operates electronic trading venues in equities, fixed income and forex around the world. Among its latest initiatives is New Line Networks, a joint venture with World Class Wireless using microwave technology to connect major global market centers at lightning speeds.

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The 2015 Tech 50

1. Jeffrey Sprecher Intercontinental Exchange 2. Catherine Bessant Bank of America Corp. Podcast: Uncovering Opportunities in Direct Real Estate Sponsored by Fidelity Investments June 30, 2025 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