The 2014 Tech 50: Jeffrey Sprecher

July 08, 2014

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

Jeffrey Sprecher

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Intercontinental

Exchange

Last year: 2

It was only 14 years ago that Jeffrey Sprecher started Atlanta-based Intercontinental Exchange, after purchasing a regional marketplace, Continental Power Exchange, in 1997. He set out to expand aggressively through acquisitions and deployment of electronic trading technology — strategic pillars that remain firmly in place following the climactic ICE–NYSE Euronext merger last November. As chairman and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, Sprecher, 59, rules a global empire of 17 regulated exchanges and six clearinghouses. Nowhere are his moves being watched with more anticipation than in New York, as he blends ICE’s lean, highly automated approach with the mustier culture of NYSE and its iconic trading floor. In May he installed former ICE senior vice president Thomas Farley as president of NYSE Group and successor to departing CEO Duncan Niederauer. “Our timing in terms of the acquisition has been somewhat prophetic, as leadership for change around trading can come from the NYSE,” Sprecher says. “It is the mother ship that the industry is willing to rally around.”

ICE has extended its long profit-making streak into the new era: In the first quarter of this year, it earned a record $262 million on $932 million in revenue. But ICE isn’t immune to the downward trends affecting its peers. Average daily volume overall fell 15 percent in May, compared with a year earlier; commodity futures and options were off 23 percent; NYSE cash equities fell 13 percent. Cash equities were unchanged at the Euronext exchanges, which are leaving the fold (see Dominique Cerutti, No. 17) and which Sprecher believes “will be better standing alone because the European capital markets that they serve are very local markets.” In February, ICE acquired Singapore Mercantile Exchange as its first foothold in Asia, where economic expansion has resulted in “more risks that have to be hedged,” Sprecher says. “So the customer base is growing.”

The 2014 Tech 50