The 2014 Tech 50: Sebastián Ceria

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

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Sebastián Ceria
Chief Executive Officer
Axioma
(PNR)

Financial institutions are well behind the technology curve, according to Sebastián Ceria. “From 2002 to 2007,” he asserts, firms “were so busy making money, they didn’t bring things up to date. Since the crisis hit they’ve been putting out fires. It’s a technology-driven business that hasn’t fully adapted.” As CEO of New York–based Axioma, Ceria aims to help close that gap. Chalk up the punditry to the 49-year-old’s professorial bent. An Argentinean native with a Ph.D. in operations research from Carnegie Mellon University, Ceria began teaching mathematical modeling at Columbia Business School in 1993. He formed Axioma as a consulting company in 1998 in response to businesses’ requests for his expertise. He steered the company toward financial applications. By 2001 it had transformed itself into a software developer, initially for portfolio optimization, then, starting in 2006, for risk management. Today, Axioma has 120 employees globally, and five of the top ten U.S. asset managers use its risk and portfolio construction tools. Ceria’s entrepreneurial instincts and insights have been instrumental in Axioma’s ability to rival bigger and older players, such as MSCI (see Chris Corrado, No. 32). “We were ahead of the market in seeing the need for daily updates and multiple models for multiple views of risk,” Ceria notes. “The market moved in our direction.”

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