The 2014 Tech 50: Jeff Parker

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

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Jeff Parker
Chairman
EidoSearch
(PNR)

Certain milestones spell success for a start-up, and EidoSearch has had a few. In the summer of 2012, it won recognition from New York’s FinTech Innovation Lab (see Cristóbal Conde, No. 39), opening doors to prominent financial institutions and venture capitalists. A year later, while selling its high-powered “search and discovery” technology to “some of the largest financial firms in the world,” as its website proclaims, Toronto-based EidoSearch completed a $2 million funding round led by Resolute Ventures. But the imprimatur of Jeff Parker, appointed chairman last November, really put the company on the map. The 71-year-old’s résumé is a walk through fintech innovation history: In 1986 he sold two enterprises he had founded, Technical Data Corp. and First Call Corp., to Thomson Corp. and became CEO of the Thomson Reuters predecessor’s financial services subsidiary. Back to entrepreneurship in 1997, he launched Corporate Communications Broadcast Network, which Thomson bought in 2004. EidoSearch, founded in 2008 by University of Chicago MBA classmates David Kedmey and Steven Zhang, represents “the culmination of everything I’ve been interested in: organization of information, efficiency gains through presentation of data and forecasting capability,” says Parker, who is also chairman of communications services company Mainstream Data. For time-series investment and risk analysis, “it’s all about harnessing the past to predict the future. History always repeats itself in the markets — it’s just a question of getting the client to notice that.”

The 2014 Tech 50Click name to view ranking profile.

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