| 5 |
| Brian Conroy |
| President |
| Fidelity Capital Markets |
| Last year: 4 |
Being part of Fidelity Investments, a privately held firm known for making technology development commitments irrespective of near-term earnings concerns, takes some pressure off Brian Conroy as he pushes the envelope on behalf of clients of the Boston-based fund giant’s institutional trading arm. “We are not looking for a boom,” says the Fidelity Capital Markets president. “We don’t spend a lot of money and then hope it works. If it disrupts our market, that’s secondary.” A case in point: Fidelity Prime Services, the capital markets unit’s prime brokerage division, in 2012 introduced PB Optimize, bringing price transparency to the securities lending market. This year the firm will add functions to allow hedge funds to put long positions on the platform and move their collateral more efficiently, and “what if?” trading models are in the works. “It’s all about creating a much more automated process for what has been a manual and opaque industry,” says Conroy, 49, a former SAC Capital Management trading head who joined Fidelity Management & Research Co. in 2005. In equities “electronic trading is well developed and commoditized,” so Fidelity prefers to “solve a different riddle,” he says. “The process of bringing companies public hasn’t changed in 25 years. We want to be an innovator there.”
See also Conroy’s profiles in the 2013 Trading Technology 40 and the 2012 Trading Technology 30.
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< 4. Jonathan Ross | The 2014 Trading Tech 40 | 6. Richard Prager> |
