The 2016 Tech 50: R. Martin Chavez

Chavez, CIO of Goldman Sachs Group, comes in at No. 6 this year, up from No. 7 in 2015.

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< The 2016 Tech 50

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6
R. Martin Chavez
Chief Information Officer
Goldman Sachs Group
Last year: 7

Considering that some 11,000 of Goldman Sachs Group’s 36,500 employees are engineers, “we think of technology as an essential driver of innovation in all our businesses,” says chief information officer R. Martin Chavez. “Against the ever-evolving market structure backdrop, our ability to innovate and provide a range of execution alternatives is essential for our clients, who increasingly depend on our ability to integrate market expertise with automation across products.” Priorities and opportunities center on automating services and deepening client relationships, he says, pointing to the Marquee Studio and SIMON (Structured Investment Marketplace and Online Network) apps as examples. The former consists of portfolio and risk analytics tools for internal and external clients; the latter includes education, investment customization and performance analysis tools for financial advisers. “Large financial service firms have generally trailed the tech sector in adopting open APIs [application programming interfaces], so our leadership in that area is exciting,” Chavez says. This year the firm consolidated e-trading assets and trading businesses in a systematic market-making group, says the 52-year-old, who became a Goldman partner in 2006 and CIO in 2013 after serving as global co-COO of equities. A senior-level digital strategies group was formed to coordinate technology initiatives across the securities division. With the acquisition in April of General Electric Co.’s GE Capital Bank and its $16 billion in online deposits, now part of Goldman Sachs Bank USA, the venerable Wall Street firm is in uncharted consumer lending territory. “We’ve learned so many lessons from building our existing businesses, but we have immense humility for what we don’t know, having never built a retail business organically at the firm,” Chavez explains. “In many regards, we are a start-up with 147 years of experience.” A Stanford University Ph.D in medical information sciences who also earned a master’s in computer science from Harvard University, Chavez has done two stints with Goldman Sachs, initially in the J. Aron & Co. currency and commodities division from 1993 to 1997. Before returning in 2005, he served as global head of energy derivatives for Credit Suisse Financial Products and CEO of risk management systems company Kiodex.

Visit The 2016 Tech 50: Making Financial Services Faster, Cheaper, Bigger for more.


The 2016 Tech 50

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1. Catherine
Bessant
Bank of America Corp.

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2. Jeffrey Sprecher
Intercontinental Exchange

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3. Lance Uggla
Markit

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4. Phupinder Gill
CME Group

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5. Shawn Edwards and Vlad Kliatchko
Bloomberg

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6. R. Martin Chavez
Goldman Sachs Group

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7. Robert Goldstein
BlackRock

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8. Adena Friedman
Nasdaq

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9. Deborah Hopkins
Citi Ventures

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10. Daniel Coleman
KCG Holdings

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11. Stephen Neff
Fidelity Investments

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12. David Craig
Thomson Reuters

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13. Michael Spencer
ICAP

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14. Michael Bodson
Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.

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15. Charles Li
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing

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16. Chris Concannon
BATS Global Markets

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17. Blythe Masters
Digital Asset Holdings

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18. David Rutter
R3CEV

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19. Neil Katz
D.E. Shaw & Co.

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20. Lee Olesky
Tradeweb Markets

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21. Richard McVey
MarketAxess Holdings

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22. Seth Merrin
Liquidnet Holdings

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23. Robert Alexander
Capital One Financial Corp.

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24. Brad Katsuyama
IEX Group

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25. Antoine Shagoury
State Street Corp.

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26. David Gledhill
DBS Bank

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27. Lou Eccleston
TMX Group

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28. Andreas Preuss
Deutsche BÖrse

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29. Dan Schulman
PayPal Holdings

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30. Scott Dillon
Wells Fargo & Co.

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31. Mike Chinn
S&P Global Market Intelligence

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32. Craig Donohue
Options Clearing Corp.

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33. Gary Norcross
Fidelity National Information Services

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34. Steven O’Hanlon
Numerix

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35. Sebastián Ceria
Axioma

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36. Michael Cooper
BT Radianz

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37. Tyler Kim
MaplesFS

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38. Neal Pawar
AQR Capital Management

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39. David Harding
Winton Capital Management

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40. Chris Corrado
London Stock Exchange Group

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41. Brian Conlon
First Derivatives

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42. Jim Minnick
eVestment

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43. Stephane Dubois
Xignite

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44. Mazy Dar
OpenFin

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45. Yasuki Okai
NRI Holdings America

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46. Kim Fournais
Saxo Bank

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47. Jock Percy
Perseus

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48. Robert Schifellite
Broadridge Financial Solutions

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49. Brian Sentance
Xenomorph Software

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50. Pieter van der Does
Adyen

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