The 2014 Tech 50: Gary Scholten

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

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Gary Scholten

Chief Information Officer

Principal Financial Group

Last year: 38

Chief information officer of Principal Financial Group since 2002 and as of this year an executive vice president, Gary Scholten describes his current priorities in simple, pragmatic terms: “We want to build self-service capabilities to make us easier to do business with.” At the same time, he insists on a certain amount of blue-sky thinking. “All companies are just scratching the surface when it comes to using data in their businesses,” he notes. How these efforts play out could change the way corporations operate, and Scholten wants Principal, a Des Moines, Iowa–based global investment manager and insurer with $483 billion of assets under management, to be prepared. Last year he oversaw a major upgrade of the global research platform for equities, allowing traders and managers using any type of device to integrate external data and complex algorithms into their models. “We can leverage broad amounts of data [in ways that are] really important for risk management and investment performance,” says the 56-year-old, who joined Principal as an assistant planning analyst in 1980 after graduating from the University of Northern Iowa. This year Scholten is focused on “the customer experience,” including website designs and mobile applications. Meanwhile, information security has become an obsession at Principal, and “we’re thinking outside the box,” sharing information with other companies about vulnerabilities and solutions.

The 2014 Tech 50Click name to view ranking profile.

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