As president of Merrill Lynch & Co.’s operations in China (1999–2003) and chairman of JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s activities there (2003–’09), Charles Li gained an investment banker’s appreciation of information technology in emerging markets and how critical it would be in building capital market infrastructures. Since 2010 that has been Li’s business as chief executive of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing. Li began laying technological groundwork two years ago with the HK$3 billion ($387 million) Orion project. Significant market data, derivatives and clearing upgrades were completed over the past year while HKEx turned its attention to international connectivity — to the London Metal Exchange, which the Hong Kong market acquired in December 2012 for $2.2 billion, and to Shanghai–Hong Kong Stock Connect. The latter — the long-discussed “through train,” due to open later this year — will be a “significant breakthrough in the opening of China’s capital market,” says the 52-year-old Li.
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 |