The 2014 Tech 50: Jim McGuire

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

44
Jim McGuire
Chief Information Officer
Charles Schwab Corp.
Last year: 47

Part of Jim McGuire’s job as chief information officer of Charles Schwab Corp. and head of Schwab Technology Services is to vet emerging technologies. He describes the task as “a combination of where do we place bets and where do we take a wait-and-see role.” CIO at the San Francisco–based firm since January 2013, McGuire, 59, is currently weighing a number of cloud computing options, intent on selecting two. “There’s not a huge difference in their technical capabilities,” he says of offerings from the likes of Amazon.com and Microsoft Corp. For Schwab, which has 9.2 million active brokerage accounts and manages $2.35 trillion in client assets, the decision hinges on “which we feel more confident with, in both security and within our regulatory environment.” Schwab itself is a cloud provider of sorts, supporting the back offices of 7,000-plus Schwab Advisor Services clients. A smartphone app launched in February allows investment advisers in the network to put their own brand names on mobile connections with their customers. McGuire, who worked at Schwab from 1997 to 2004 and returned in 2009 after a stint at eBay and its PayPal subsidiary, says cybersecurity is a never-ending battle. “Companies like ours are realizing that [100 percent security] is never going to come.”

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