For quantitative trading firms, technology is typically a cost center. "My overriding objective is to take the technology and turn it into a profit center," Manoj Narang says. He worked on that model for 16 years with Tradeworx, a high frequency trading shop that he founded. Tradeworx's Thesys Technologies affiliate was recently designated the Securities and Exchange Commission's primary contractor for its massive transaction database, the Consolidated Audit Trail.
In October 2015, several months after leaving Tradeworx, Narang began anew with Mana Partners — he as CEO and chief investment strategist, with co-founder John Holena as president and chief information officer. Now up to about 40 people — the principals have 200-plus years of combined quant trading experience — the New York firm raised $1 billion for a hedge fund prior to its January launch. Narang, 47, believes he is differentiating his fund by "combining traditional quantitative investing — statistical arbitrage — with HFT." He says that with a couple of deals pending, the fintech side of the business is about to take off: "There is tremendous room for innovation in how asset management services are delivered."
 2. Chris Isaacson Bats Global Markets  3. Bradley Peterson Nasdaq  4. Brad Levy MarkitSERV  5. Dan Keegan Citi |
 6. Glenn Lesko Bloomberg Tradebook  7. Bryan Durkin CME Group  8. Mayur Kapani Intercontinental Exchange  9. Mike Blum KCG Holdings  10. Raj Mahajan Goldman Sachs Group |
 11. Ronald DePoalo Fidelity Institutional  12. Nick Themelis MarketAxess Holdings  13. Jenny Knott NEX Optimisation  14. Billy Hult Tradeweb Markets  15. Rob Park IEX Group |
 16. Bill Chow & Richard Leung Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing  17. John Mackay (Mack) Gill MillenniumIT  18. Paul Hamill Citadel Securities  19. Eric Noll Convergex  20. Veronica Augustsson Cinnober Financial Technology |
 21. Tyler Moeller & Joshua Walsky Broadway Technology  22. Alasdair Haynes Aquis Exchange  23. Gaurav Suri Arcesium  24. Manoj Narang Mana Partners  25. Michael Chin & Neill Penney Thomson Reuters |
 26. Robert Sloan S3 Partners  27. Anton Katz & Stephen Mock AQR Capital Management  28. Donal Byrne Corvil  29. Stu Taylor Algomi  30. Alfred Eskandar Portware |
 31. Steven Randich Financial Industry Regulatory Authority  32. R. Cromwell Coulson OTC Markets Group  33. Peter Maragos Dash Financial  34. John Fawcett Quantopian  35. Donald Ross III PDQ Enterprises |
 36. Jennifer Nayar Vela Trading Technologies  37. Dan Raju Tradier  38. Susan Estes OpenDoor Trading  39. David Mercer LMAX Exchange  40. Oki Matsumoto Monex Group |
