< The 2017 Tech 40

13. Charles Li
Chief Executive Officer
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing
Last year: 15

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."

 
The 2017 Tech 40

1. Adena Friedman NASDAQ 2. Catherine Bessant Bank of America Corp. 3. Robert Goldstein BlackRock 4. Jeffrey Sprecher Intercontinental Exchange Advisors and Their Clients Call for New Asset Classes in Model Portfolios Sponsored by BlackRock May 6, 2025 5. Lance Uggla IHS Markit

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