The 2014 Tech 50: Jeffrey Sprecher

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

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Jeffrey Sprecher

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Intercontinental

Exchange

Last year: 2

It was only 14 years ago that Jeffrey Sprecher started Atlanta-based Intercontinental­ Exchange, after purchasing a regional marketplace, Continental Power Exchange, in 1997. He set out to expand aggressively through acquisitions and deployment of electronic trading technology — strategic pillars that remain firmly in place following the climactic ICE–NYSE Euronext merger last November. As chairman and CEO of Intercontinental­ Exchange, Sprecher, 59, rules a global empire of 17 regulated exchanges and six clearinghouses. Nowhere are his moves being watched with more anticipation than in New York, as he blends ICE’s lean, highly automated approach with the mustier culture of NYSE and its iconic trading floor. In May he installed former ICE senior vice president Thomas Farley as president of NYSE Group and successor to departing CEO Duncan Niederauer. “Our timing in terms of the acquisition has been somewhat prophetic, as leadership for change around trading can come from the NYSE,” Sprecher says. “It is the mother ship that the industry is willing to rally around.”

ICE has extended its long profit-making streak into the new era: In the first quarter of this year, it earned a record $262 million on $932 million in revenue. But ICE isn’t immune to the downward trends affecting its peers. Average daily volume overall fell 15 percent in May, compared with a year earlier; commodity futures and options were off 23 percent; NYSE cash equities fell 13 percent. Cash equities were unchanged at the Euro­next exchanges, which are leaving the fold (see Dominique Cerutti, No. 17) and which Sprecher believes “will be better standing alone because the European capital markets that they serve are very local markets.” In February, ICE acquired Singapore Mercantile Exchange as its first foothold in Asia, where economic expansion has resulted in “more risks that have to be hedged,” Sprecher says. “So the customer base is growing.”

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