In the 19 years since Sebastián Ceria founded Axioma, a software company focused on the buy side, changes in financial markets and information technology have accelerated. Ceria has built the New York–based business to keep pace as risk and portfolio management decisions increasingly require on-demand analytics that can't be pushed back till the end of the day or overnight. Axioma, which started out as a consulting firm in mathematical modeling and began selling portfolio optimization software in 2001, entered the risk systems business in 2006. By 2013 it was touting its multi-asset class, enterprise-wide Axioma Risk as "a quantum leap forward," combining simulation- and factor-based approaches for portfolio and risk managers on a common platform for the first time. Stressing innovation processes that invite customer collaboration, along with agile systems development and a heavy reliance on the capacity and flexibility of cloud computing, Axioma has grown to more than 240 employees and about 200 asset management, pension fund, and hedge fund clients worldwide. "We could not have accomplished what we did without the cloud," says Ceria, 52, who completed a Ph.D. in operations at Carnegie Mellon University and earned an undergraduate degree in applied math at the University of Buenos Aires.
 1. Adena Friedman NASDAQ  2. Catherine Bessant Bank of America Corp.  3. Robert Goldstein BlackRock  4. Jeffrey Sprecher Intercontinental Exchange  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 |