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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.

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Jeffrey Sprecher
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Intercontinental Exchange

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.


The 2015 Tech 50

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

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