If global reach and product diversification — and the ability to confront the technology challenges that they pose — separate the elite exchange operators from the rest, then Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing truly joined the club in 2013 with its $2.2 billion acquisition of the London Metal Exchange. The motivation of Charles Li, HKEX's chief executive officer since 2010, was not mere empire-building: His focus is on growth opportunities in China, including LME's potential to serve Chinese institutional traders' needs. Despite his lobbying efforts, Li has yet to get LME registered on the mainland. But he did gain approval for a surrogate, the Qianhai Mercantile Exchange, which opened in May in Shenzhen. HKEX's fifth active trading venue, Qianhai caters to demand that, according to Li, is not being met by China's three futures markets. The 55-year-old adds that very few contracts on the Chinese exchanges come with an option for physical settlement, and spot market participants are dispersed among hundreds of poorly regulated and highly fragmented trading platforms. "We can't just blindly copy the LME, because China has its own unique characteristics and challenges," Li says. "So we want to leverage the LME to begin tackling some of China's unique structural issues by building a new model that both fills a market vacuum and meets market needs. We want to serve the physical economy and eventually establish benchmark prices for China."
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 6. Shawn Edwards & Vlad Kliatchko Bloomberg  7. David Craig Thomson Reuters  8. Michael Spencer NEX Group  9. Don Callahan Citigroup  10. Elisha Wiesel Goldman Sachs Group |
 11. Michael Bodson Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.  12. Terrence Duffy CME Group  13. Charles Li Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing  14. Sean Belka Fidelity Investments  15. Chris Concannon CBOE Holdings |
 16. Guy Chiarello First Data Corp.  17. Steven Lieblich Citadel  18. David Rutter R3CEV  19. Blythe Masters Digital Asset Holdings  20. Alfred Spector Two Sigma Investments |
 21. Neil Katz D.E. Shaw Group  22. Lee Olesky Tradeweb Markets  23. Richard McVey MarketAxess Holdings  24. David Gledhill DBS Bank  25. Seth Merrin Liquidnet Holdings |
 26. Antoine Shagoury State Street Corp.  27. Peter Brown & Robert Mercer Renaissance Technologies  28. Lou Eccleston TMX Group  29. Peter Cherecwich Northern Trust Corp.  30. Mike Chinn S&P Global Market Intelligence |
 31. Chris Corrado London Stock Exchange Group  32. Neal Pawar AQR Capital Management  33. Gary Norcross Fidelity National Information Services  34. Steven O'Hanlon Numerix  35. Sebastián Ceria Axioma |
 36. Brian Conlon First Derivatives and Kx Systems  37. Tyler Kim MaplesFS  38. Michael Cooper BT Radianz  39. Robert Schifellite Broadridge Financial Solutions  40. Jim Minnick eVestment |