The 2014 Tech 50: David Craig

July 08, 2014

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

David Craig

President,

Financial & Risk

Thomson Reuters

Last year: 10

Revenue fell 1 percent last year in Thomson Reuters’ $6.6 billion Financial & Risk group — and by the same percentage in this year’s first quarter, to $1.7 billion, year-over-year — but the unit is not devoid of bright spots as president David Craig pushes forward with its transformation into what he terms a “platform” business. “The big focus now is on content,” the 44-year-old Londoner explains. Instead of having to buy discrete legacy products, “now you can access all our content from one single point” on any of three flagship platforms: the Eikon desktop network, Elektron for data feeds and Accelus for governance, risk and compliance (GRC). In one very tangible break from the past, the Reuters 3000 Xtra terminal was discontinued in the first quarter; now more than 120,000 users are on the new-generation Eikon, up from 75,000 in September and 47,000 in March 2013. Customers no longer look to a data provider like Thomson Reuters “as an information service,” Craig asserts. “They want to see us as a full solution.” Now considered a “unified platform,” Financial & Risk, which Craig has headed since a year-end-2011 reorganization, no longer breaks out the results of subunits, but among the company’s 2013 highlights were 11 percent revenue growth for the FXall currency marketplace and 14 percent for the GRC business, launched by Craig in 2010.

The 2014 Tech 50