Today many financial technologists have artificial intelligence in their toolbox. Not so in 2012, when Alfred Eskandar, formerly head of corporate strategy at buy-side trading platform company Liquidnet Holdings, joined New York–based Portware and set it apart with an AI component that raised the level of sophistication of its execution management system. As of November 2016, with the release of Portware Enterprise version 6.4, the "thinking EMS" offers real-time analytic and decision support enhancements that, according to the 43-year-old CEO, amount to "a virtual trading assistant" supporting complex, global strategies across multiple asset classes.
With more than $10 trillion in institutional assets running on its software, up from $3 trillion in 2012, Portware became part of FactSet Research Systems in an October 2015 acquisition. A year later FactSet bought CYMBA Technologies and Vermilion Software, U.K.-based providers of order management and client reporting systems, respectively. FactSet CEO Philip Snow says the company aims "to more holistically address the portfolio life cycle through both innovation and acquisition," and there is a clear implication that more moves are to come.
 1. Richard Prager BlackRock  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 |