The 2017 Trading Tech 40: John Mackay (Mack) Gill

Peter Vasiliev

March 07, 2017

< Wall Street's Nerds: The World's Most Powerful Trading Executives

17. John Mackay (Mack) Gill

Chief Executive Officer

MillenniumIT – London Stock Exchange Group

Last year: 18

Market technology providers routinely push the envelope in the rush to execute trades in the smallest possible fraction of a second. The 800-employee, Sri Lanka–based MillenniumIT, which London Stock Exchange Group acquired in 2009 and has been headed by John Mackay (Mack) Gill since 2013, developed one of the world's fastest exchange platforms for the LSE and has more than 40 client sites around the world using its systems. It ensures extremely low latency by deploying field-programmable gate array (FPGA) hardware in operations such as the LSE Group Ticker Plant.

But high-performance technologies aren't just for the front end of the transaction cycle. With the Millennium PostTrade clearing, settlement, and depository platform, the company relies on graphics processing units (GPUs) to deliver real-time, cross-asset analytic and risk management capabilities. Having completed a sizable installation of PostTrade last year at the Singapore Exchange, MillenniumIT is taking it up a notch with the next-generation platform now in progress for the LSEG-controlled clearinghouse LCH. "Real-time capabilities will be extended to stress testing, backtesting and member-driven 'what if' scenarios, providing a comprehensive and flexible real-time enterprisewide risk management framework," LSEG said in an announcement last fall. "Clearinghouses are systemically important entities that cut across many financial institutions," notes Gill, 47, who spent 19 years with various units of SunGard Data Systems before becoming CEO of MillenniumIT. "Improved analytics in real time, with enhanced margining and netting capabilities, are important tools for central counterparties such as LCH."

The 2017 Trading Tech 40