Hedge fund enabler

Internet brokerage pioneer John MacIlwaine has long outgrown his sandals and T-shirts, but he's still footloose in a dot-com sort of way. The onetime chief technology officer of San Francisco's Lombard Brokerage -- acquired by Dean Witter for $40 million in 1996 -- moved in mid-2002 to Chicago-based EnvestnetPMC, an upstart software developer for the fast-growing managed-accounts business. He'd been there barely a year when a pillar of the financial technology establishment, $2.5 billion-in-revenues SunGard Data Systems, came calling: Now MacIlwaine is the new CTO of Hinsdale, Illinois­based SunGard Investment Management Systems. This time he expects to stay for a while. "The opportunity here to introduce new enabling technology into a successful existing business is exciting to me," says MacIlwaine, 34.

Douglas Morgan, who became president of SunGard's investment management unit in October after seven years with Thomson Financial, is depending on MacIlwaine to help the company battle the likes of Bisys Group, SEI Corp. and Thomson in the burgeoning hedge fund systems market. One of MacIlwaine's challenges will be to complete the integration early this year of previously incompatible SunGard platforms into a comprehensive investment accounting and back-office solution called HedgePower. "With the slowdown we see in the mutual fund market, our growth will come in places like alternative investments and separately managed accounts," explains Morgan, 39. "John will develop the kind of systems integration and flexibility to serve those markets that SunGard didn't have in the past."