The 2014 Tech 50: Michael Spencer

< The 2014 Tech 50: Moving Out of the Lab and Into the Cloud

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Michael Spencer
Chief ExecutiveOfficer
ICAP
Last year: 16

During the Internet boom, while many firms were staking out early positions in e-commerce, Michael Spencer was wheeling and dealing the old-fashioned way, cobbling together businesses that became London-based Garban-Intercapital in 1999. The interdealer brokerage, the world’s biggest, was renamed ICAP in 2001, and by then CEO Spencer was on his way to becoming one of the industry’s most vocal and persistent technology proponents — undaunted despite what he describes as “ongoing structural challenges” and “extremely difficult trading conditions” that drove ICAP’s revenue down 5 percent in the year ended March 31, to £1.4 billion ($2.3 billion). Although traditional voice brokerage “will continue to be essential” for complex or bespoke transactions, the 59-year-old says, “I recognized that the future was in electronic broking, posttrade and information services.” Indeed, those parts of ICAP contributed 69 percent of its £295 million operating profit, up from the two previous years’ 66 percent and 59 percent. Noting that 25 percent of the firm’s 4,900 employees are “engaged in technology-related activities,” Spencer says a “global research and development capability,” with hubs in Israel, Sweden and the U.S., is producing such innovations as EBS Direct, designed to enhance liquidity and credit risk management in currency trading, and the CreditLink platform from ICAP’s Traiana unit, created to support trading under new derivatives market rules. ICAP’s dual-registered, U.K.-U.S. swaps execution facility is another of the “initiatives where ICAP has responded to regulatory change.”

The 2014 Tech 50

1 Dave Cross	1	3 IAN CURCIO 2011	4 FayFoto/Boston	5 Teri Pengilley
Thomas Secunda Bloomberg	Jeffrey Sprecher Intercontinental Exchange	Catherine Bessant Bank of America Corp.	Stephen Neff Fidelity Investments	Lance Uggla Markit
6	7	8 Photographer:Charlie Simokaitis	9	10 Mark McQueen
Robert Goldstein BlackRock	David Craig Thomson Reuters	Phupinder Gill CME Group	Anna Ewing NASDAQ OMX Group	R. Martin Chavez Goldman Sachs Group
11	12	13	14	15 Christopher Elston
Deborah Hopkins Citi Ventures	Dan Mathisson Credit Suisse	Daniel Coleman KCG Holdings	Michael Spencer ICAP	Michael Bodson Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.
16	17	18 Todd Plitt	19	20
Joe Ratterman BATS Global Markets	Dominique Cerutti Euronext	Ron Levi GFI Group	Gaurav Suri D.E. Shaw Group	Charles Li Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing
21 Larry Lettera/ Camera 1	22	23	24 XT	25
Lou Eccleston S&P Capital IQ	Lee Olesky Tradeweb Markets	Richard McVey MarketAxess Holdings	Seth Merrin Liquidnet Holdings	Antoine Shagoury London Stock Exchange Group
26 Production	27 Wayne R. Martin	28	29 Thorsten Jansen	30 Adam B. Auel
Christopher Perretta State Street Corp.	Kevin Rhein Wells Fargo & Co.	Peter Carr Morgan Stanley	Hauke Stars Deutsche Börse	Robert Alexander Capital One Financial Corp.
31	32	33 Paul Elledge	34	35 Stephen Brashear
David Gershon SuperDerivatives	Chris Corrado MSCI	Joseph Squeri Citadel	Tanuja Randery BT Global Services	John Bates Software AG
36	37	38	39 Photo Credit: Kevin Irby	40
Gary Scholten Principal Financial Group	David Gledhill DBS Bank	Simon Garland Kx Systems	Cristóbal Conde FinTech Innovation Lab	Jeff Parker EidoSearch
41	42 Jeff Smith Photo	43	44	45
Kim Fournais & Lars Seier Christensen Saxo Bank	Kenneth Marlin Marlin & Associates	Tyler Kim MaplesFS	Jim McGuire Charles Schwab Corp.	Jim Minnick eVestment
46	47	48 tomohisa ichiki	49 David Poultney	50 A.E. Fletcher Photography
Steven O’Hanlon Numerix	Sebastián Ceria Axioma	Yasuki Okai Nomura Research Institute	Niki Beattie Market Structure Partners	Mas Nakachi OpenGamma