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The 2015 Tech 50: Jeffrey Sprecher
The Intercontinental Exchange chairman and CEO remains in the No. 1 spot on this year’s Tech 50 ranking.
On the slim foundation of a regional power exchange that he bought in 1997 for $1 as a proving ground for electronic trading innovation, Jeffrey Sprecher formed Intercontinental Exchange in 2000. Within a decade the entrepreneur had lived the dream of becoming a captain of industry as ICE, fueled by several more sizable, flawlessly executed acquisitions, grew into a global force in energy, commodities and derivatives. And that was before the $11 billion takeover of NYSE Euronext in 2013 lifted ICE to its current perch atop the exchange world. Sprecher, however, has not lost touch with his inner disrupter, or with a key strategic ingredient that got him this far. “The risk of adopting technology early is one that I don’t mind taking,” the 60-year-old says. “Technology allowed us to scale the business quickly — it scales in ways that people can’t.” ICE injected scale and efficiency into NYSE; it replaced the legacy Liffe derivatives platform last year. In New York, where a technical glitch halted trading for more than three hours on July 8, ICE is implementing Pillar, which will consolidate five equity and options systems into one as it rolls out between this quarter and 2017. Maintaining a stellar earnings record — first-quarter profit per share from continuing operations, at $3.06, jumped 26 percent year-over-year — Sprecher remains acquisitive. SuperDerivatives, purchased in October 2014 for $350 million, is a “big data play,” he says, with “tools for deep data analysis” that are in the same realm of analytic and valuation capabilities that ICE brings to its administration of Libor, gold and swap benchmarks. In January, NYSE took a minority stake in Bitcoin wallet company Coinbase, followed in May by its launch of the NYSE Bitcoin Index (NYXBT). “I am personally involved” in the investment, Sprecher says. Cryptocurrency and the associated blockchain technology “could be revolutionary. We need to be in that dialogue.”
See the full story, “The 2015 Tech 50: Racers to the Edge.”
See also “ICE’s Jeffrey Sprecher Has Built a Global Trading Powerhouse” and watch an exclusive video interview with Jeff Sprecher on why NYSE is such an important part of his company’s revenue model.
![]() 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 |