The 2014 Trading Technology 40: Ciaran O’Flynn

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Ciaran O’Flynn

Co-Head, Global Fixed-Income Electronic Trading

Morgan Stanley

(Previously not ranked)

At the start of his Morgan Stanley career, in 1992, Ciaran O’Flynn got his first exposure to fixed-income trading as an information technology analyst. Four years later he began his climb through the ranks on the trading side of the business, handling money markets, governments, agencies and covered bonds along the way. Since 2010, O’Flynn’s IT and trading backgrounds have come into play as Morgan Stanley has unified its systems for bonds and swaps. “You’ve got two choices if you’re sitting in a seat like mine,” says the 44-year-old, who spent two years running European liquid rates and global e-trading for the New York–based investment bank before being named co-head of global fixed-income electronic trading last July. “You can ignore the trends and probably watch your returns and market share dwindle over the coming years, or you can get your head out of the sand, accept that things won’t be the same and figure out what you can do based on your firm’s particular strengths to establish a new relevance for clients.” O’Flynn stresses fundamentals — “I like market making; I like bridging the liquidity to the client” — which he believes will survive market-structure and regulatory uncertainties. A director of Eris Exchange, the fast-growing interest rate swap futures market in which Morgan Stanley bought an equity stake last year, O’Flynn shares the co-head title with Dexter Senft, a mortgage securities and e-commerce pioneer with Credit Suisse First Boston and Lehman Brothers Holdings who joined Morgan Stanley in 2010.