< The 2014 Tech 50: Moving Out of the Lab and Into the Cloud

After an early 1990s stint working on trading technology for Bank of America Corp., Niki Beattie took a job as a contractor in Merrill Lynch & Co.’s finance department. But the boredom was too much for her, so she took eight months off to travel. Coaxed back to Merrill by the promise of a trading-floor position that came open in 1994, she would become one of Europe’s pioneering electronic traders — running Merrill’s first e-trading desk in London in 2001 — and experts on market structure. “I saw the transformation of our whole business,” recalls Beattie, who has a BSc in information systems and management from Birkbeck, University of London. “I could see our margins shrinking and knew we had to bring costs down.” She stayed with Merrill until 2008, rising to head of market structure for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, then founded Market Structure Partners, a London-based adviser to exchanges and other capital market participants. She had a hand in developing such infrastructure components as BOAT, a trade reporting system now owned by Cinnober Financial Technology, and London Stock Exchange Group’s Turquoise platform. Currently nonexecutive chairman of London upstart Aquis Exchange, Beattie observes that “banks are seeing a massive squeeze on their capital. It’s quite clear that exchanges will have to play a bigger role in capital formation.”

 
The 2014 Tech 50

1 Dave Cross	1	3 IAN CURCIO 2011	4 FayFoto/Boston	5 Teri Pengilley
Thomas Secunda Bloomberg	Jeffrey Sprecher Intercontinental Exchange	Catherine Bessant Bank of America Corp.	Stephen Neff Fidelity Investments	Lance Uggla Markit
6	7	8 Photographer:Charlie Simokaitis	9	10 Mark McQueen
Robert Goldstein BlackRock	David Craig Thomson Reuters	Phupinder Gill CME Group	Anna Ewing NASDAQ OMX Group	R. Martin Chavez Goldman Sachs Group
11	12	13	14	15 Christopher Elston
Deborah Hopkins Citi Ventures	Dan Mathisson Credit Suisse	Daniel Coleman KCG Holdings	Michael Spencer ICAP	Michael Bodson Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.
16	17	18 Todd Plitt	19	20
Joe Ratterman BATS Global Markets	Dominique Cerutti Euronext	Ron Levi GFI Group	Gaurav Suri D.E. Shaw Group	Charles Li Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing
21 Larry Lettera/ Camera 1	22	23	24 XT	25
Lou Eccleston S&P Capital IQ	Lee Olesky Tradeweb Markets	Richard McVey MarketAxess Holdings	Seth Merrin Liquidnet Holdings	Antoine Shagoury London Stock Exchange Group
26 Production	27 Wayne R. Martin	28	29 Thorsten Jansen	30 Adam B. Auel
Christopher Perretta State Street Corp.	Kevin Rhein Wells Fargo & Co.	Peter Carr Morgan Stanley	Hauke Stars Deutsche Börse	Robert Alexander Capital One Financial Corp.
31	32	33 Paul Elledge	34	35 Stephen Brashear
David Gershon SuperDerivatives	Chris Corrado MSCI	Joseph Squeri Citadel	Tanuja Randery BT Global Services	John Bates Software AG
36	37	38	39 Photo Credit: Kevin Irby	40
Gary Scholten Principal Financial Group	David Gledhill DBS Bank	Simon Garland Kx Systems	Cristóbal Conde FinTech Innovation Lab	Jeff Parker EidoSearch
41	42 Jeff Smith Photo	43	44	45
Kim Fournais & Lars Seier Christensen Saxo Bank	Kenneth Marlin Marlin & Associates	Tyler Kim MaplesFS	Jim McGuire Charles Schwab Corp.	Jim Minnick eVestment
46	47	48 tomohisa ichiki	49 David Poultney	50 A.E. Fletcher Photography
Steven O’Hanlon Numerix	Sebastián Ceria Axioma	Yasuki Okai Nomura Research Institute	Niki Beattie Market Structure Partners	Mas Nakachi OpenGamma