Quantitative methods that in finance have come to be associated with trading and investment strategy need not be limited to those applications, says Peter Carr, one of the field’s premier practitioners and educators. “Our job is to take a complicated reality and try to describe it as parsimoniously as possible,” explains the 55-year-old, who headed Bloomberg’s quantitative research group before moving to Morgan Stanley in 2010 as global head of market modeling. The New York–based investment bank is turning to quantitative analysis to support capital allocation decisions across its business units, says Carr, adding that private equity is a “new sphere that quants are invading.” That’s not to say traditional analytics and risk management are any less demanding of Carr’s time and mental energies. With proprietary trading in decline, his group is applying “smart hedging” to minimize risk in trading positions while maximizing profits. “Whatever the circumstances and the speed with which we are being asked to operate,” Carr says, quantitative finance continues to deliver strategic value, aided by computing advances that “have allowed us to shorten the modeling and research cycle dramatically.” Carr was a Cornell University assistant finance professor from 1988 to 1996 and has been executive director of the master’s program for Mathematics in Finance, part of New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, since 2003.
1  | 1  | 3  | 4  | 5  |
| Thomas Secunda Bloomberg | Jeffrey Sprecher Intercontinental Exchange | Catherine Bessant Bank of America Corp. | Stephen Neff Fidelity Investments | Lance Uggla Markit |
6  | 7  | 8  | 9  | 10  |
| 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  |
| Deborah Hopkins Citi Ventures | Dan Mathisson Credit Suisse | Daniel Coleman KCG Holdings | Michael Spencer ICAP | Michael Bodson Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. |
16  | 17  | 18  | 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  | 22  | 23  | 24  | 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  | 27  | 28  | 29  | 30  |
| 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  | 34  | 35  |
| David Gershon SuperDerivatives | Chris Corrado MSCI | Joseph Squeri Citadel | Tanuja Randery BT Global Services | John Bates Software AG |
36  | 37  | 38  | 39  | 40  |
| Gary Scholten Principal Financial Group | David Gledhill DBS Bank | Simon Garland Kx Systems | Cristóbal Conde FinTech Innovation Lab | Jeff Parker EidoSearch |
41  | 42  | 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  | 49  | 50  |
| Steven O’Hanlon Numerix | Sebastián Ceria Axioma | Yasuki Okai Nomura Research Institute | Niki Beattie Market Structure Partners | Mas Nakachi OpenGamma |