The 2014 Tech 50: Lance Uggla

July 08, 2014

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

Lance Uggla

Chief ExecutiveOfficer

Markit

Last year: 3

Lance Uggla was never one to hide his aspirations of disrupting the old order in financial information and technology services. Exactly how Markit, which the Canadian-born entrepreneur founded in 2003 as a credit derivatives pricing service, would execute that strategy was not always so transparent. With the London-based company’s $1.3 billion June IPO in the U.S., the veil is lifted. The registration statement said Markit has more than 3,000 institutional customers globally and listed units or products of Bloomberg, ICAP and Intercontinental Exchange among a sampling of competitors. It also revealed that 2013 revenue from Markit’s information, processing and solutions divisions totaled $948 million. Up 10 percent from 2012, the figure is nearly one eighth that of Bloomberg, with which Uggla has been known to spar. He has pointed out that privately held Bloomberg has roughly as many technologists as Markit has employees. Of Markit’s 3,200 employees, 1,100 work in information technology. Another contrast: Bloomberg rarely makes acquisitions; Markit made seven from 2011 through 2013 and this year added trade-order- and portfolio-management-software company thinkFolio and tax-reporting servicer Compliance Technologies International. Uggla, 52, says a key to Markit’s success is that more than 2,000 of its employees are shareholders and “think like owners,” resulting in “an institutionalized culture of entrepreneurship.”

The 2014 Tech 50