The 2014 Tech 50: Robert Alexander

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

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Robert Alexander
Chief Information Officer
Capital One
Financial Corp.
Last year: 37

Capital One Financial Corp. is a $290 billion-in-assets bank holding company, but for chief information officer Robert Alexander, it’s all about technology. “What we’re focused on is how do we become a great software development organization,” says the U.S. Air Force veteran and former Bain & Co. consultant, who joined the McLean, Virginia–based bank in 1998 and has been CIO since 2007. “If you’re going to be a great software company, you have to have the network and hardware to support it.” The 49-year-old has gone so far as to brand his department Capital One Technology. The unit aims to bring top software engineering talent together in work spaces away from headquarters to encourage collaboration and creativity in an “agile development” environment. The bank is certainly up to speed on cloud computing and big data, using a private cloud along with public utilities like Amazon Web Services and Hadoop, an open-source platform for extremely large-scale processing and analytics. The technology group has been working on security and antifraud measures, mobile apps and online innovations including a feature that translates credit card billing disclosures into plain English. “If you’re not building it better, faster, more innovatively and creatively,” Alexander says, “then you’re going to get left behind.”


The 2014 Tech 50

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Dave Cross

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ICE SPRECHER
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IAN CURCIO 2011

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FayFoto/Boston

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Teri Pengilley

Thomas Secunda
Bloomberg
Jeffrey Sprecher
Intercontinental Exchange
Catherine Bessant
Bank of America Corp.
Stephen Neff
Fidelity Investments
Lance Uggla
Markit
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Photographer:Charlie Simokaitis

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Mark McQueen

Robert Goldstein
BlackRock
David Craig
Thomson Reuters
Phupinder Gill
CME Group
Anna Ewing
NASDAQ
OMX Group
R. Martin Chavez
Goldman Sachs Group
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Christopher Elston

Deborah Hopkins
Citi Ventures
Dan Mathisson
Credit Suisse
Daniel Coleman
KCG Holdings
Michael Spencer
ICAP
Michael Bodson
Depository Trust &
Clearing Corp.
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Todd Plitt

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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
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Lou Eccleston

Larry Lettera/ Camera 1

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XT

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Lou Eccleston
S&P Capital IQ
Lee Olesky
Tradeweb Markets
Richard McVey
MarketAxess Holdings
Seth Merrin
Liquidnet Holdings
Antoine
Shagoury

London Stock
Exchange Group
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Production

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Wayne R. Martin

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Deutsche Bank AG - Hauke Stars

Thorsten Jansen

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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.
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Paul Elledge

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Stephen Brashear

David Gershon
SuperDerivatives
Chris Corrado
MSCI
Joseph Squeri
Citadel
Tanuja Randery
BT Global Services
John Bates
Software AG
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Photo Credit: Kevin Irby

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Gary Scholten
Principal Financial Group
David Gledhill
DBS Bank
Simon Garland
Kx Systems
Cristóbal Conde
FinTech Innovation Lab
Jeff Parker
EidoSearch
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Jeff Smith Photo

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Kim Fournais &
Lars Seier Christensen

Saxo Bank
Kenneth Marlin
Marlin & Associates
Tyler Kim
MaplesFS
Jim McGuire
Charles Schwab Corp.
Jim Minnick
eVestment
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tomohisa ichiki

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David Poultney

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A.E. Fletcher Photography

Steven O’Hanlon
Numerix
Sebastián Ceria
Axioma
Yasuki Okai
Nomura Research Institute
Niki Beattie
Market Structure Partners
Mas Nakachi
OpenGamma

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