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

22. Alasdair Haynes
Chief Executive Officer
Aquis Exchange
Last year: 25

For Aquis Exchange, launched in 2013 as a pan-European challenger to leading incumbents such as Bats Global Markets and London Stock Exchange Group, 2016 was a "transformational year," says CEO Alasdair Haynes. London-based Aquis, which had differentiated itself from the start with subscription pricing, in February 2016 imposed a rule prohibiting "aggressive, non-client proprietary trading." That contributed to a surge in the exchange's average daily value — 79 percent year-over-year in October — with market shares in some top stocks exceeding 6 percent.

"It takes three to four years to get these businesses going," says Haynes, 57, who was CEO of Chi-X Europe before Bats acquired it in 2011. He has formed a separate division for Aquis Technologies. Its turnkey exchange system has been bought by the A2X market in South Africa, and Haynes says that its real-time trade and order surveillance system is meeting healthy demand from organizations coping with the European Market Abuse Regulation and MiFID (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive) II.

 
The 2017 Trading Tech 40

1. Richard Prager BlackRock 2. Chris Isaacson Bats Global Markets 3. Bradley Peterson Nasdaq Methanol Gains Traction as an Alternative Energy Source Sponsored by CME Group May 5, 2025 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