The 2015 Trading Technology 40: Hazem Dawani

#40 Hazem Dawani, Chief Executive Officer, OptionsCity Software

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< The 2015 Trading Technology 40: Going with the Flow

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Hazem Dawani
Chief Executive Officer
OptionsCity Software
Previously Not Ranked

Software companies commonly provide exercise or play spaces where harried developers can let off steam. OptionsCity Software took the idea outside — and to an extreme — last fall on the exhibit floor of the Futures Industry Association’s Futures & Options Expo in Chicago: It threw a LEGO party. The playtime had a higher purpose, calling attention to the building-block nature of Metro NOW, OptionsCity’s newly overhauled flagship trading system, CEO Hazem Dawani explains. Slated for official release on March 1, Metro NOW will put the power of design in traders’ hands. “Customers can select the widgets they want and build their own trading experience,” says Dawani, 35. Such app-store-like open platforms are being deployed in many high-tech settings, including finance, “but nobody is doing it in trading.” The Illinois Institute of Technology graduate (BS in computer engineering) started working on options automation in 2003, on the cusp of the e-trading explosion, at market maker Chicago Trading Co. In 2006, Dawani and his co-founders — chairman and CTO Victor Glava and CIO Rudy Fasouliotis — formed OptionsCity to serve a broader constituency of market makers and proprietary traders. In 2007 they launched Metro, followed in 2011 by algorithm platform Freeway. Today their company has 60 employees in Chicago, New York and London, and a wide range of brokerage, hedge fund and other institutional clients. In November it made its first acquisition, Optionshop, a start-up with three employees and cloud service expertise. “It is already integrated and will launch a product in the next few months,” Dawani says.


The 2015 Trading Technology 40

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Kevin Kometer
CME Group
Richard Prager
BlackRock
Raymond Tierney III
Bloomberg Tradebook
Jonathan Ross
KCG Holdings
Charles Vice
Intercontinental Exchange
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Zef Nikolla

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Chris Isaacson
BATS Global Markets
Bradley Peterson
Nasdaq OMX Group
Brad Levy
MarkitSERV
Dan Keegan
Citi
Ronald DePoalo
Fidelity Institutional
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Mark McQueen

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Margaret Fox

Gerard Beatty
Goldman Sachs Group
Gerald O’Connell
CBOE Holdings
Brenda Hoffman
TMX Group
Billy Hult
Tradeweb Markets
Nicholas Themelis
MarketAxess Holdings
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Steve Randich

Martin H. Simon

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Todd Plitt

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A.E. Fletcher Photography

Bina Kalola
Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Gil Mandelzis
EBS-BrokerTec (ICAP)
Steven Randich
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority
Jerry Dobner
GFI Group
Michael Liberman
BlueMountain Capital Management
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Photographer:http://www.digitalh

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Dennis Degnan

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Paul Elledge

Bill Chow and Richard Leung
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing
Jamie Selway
Investment Technology Group
Brad Katsuyama
IEX Group
John Mackay (Mack) Gill
MillenniumIT
Jamil Nazarali
Citadel Execution Services
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Picasa

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SENATE BANKING

Andrew Harrer

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Takashi KATO

Robert Cornish
International Securities Exchange
Tyler Moeller andJoshua Walksy
Broadway Technology
Rishi Nangalia
REDI Holdings
Manoj Narang
Tradeworx,
Thesys Technologies
Oki Matsumoto
Monex Group
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unknown

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Douglas Kurn

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Luludi/LUZ

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William Neumann Photography

Alasdair Haynes
Aquis Exchange
Veronica Augustsson
Cinnober Financial Technology
Stu Taylor
Algomi
Luís Otávio Saliba Furtado
BM&FBovespa
Tal Cohen
Chi-X Global Holdings
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Donal Byrne
Corvil
R. Cromwell Coulson
OTC Markets Group
Alfred Eskandar
Portware
Richard Korhammer
SR Labs
Hazem Dawani
OptionsCity Software

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