Kevin Kometer
No. 2
Chief Information Officer
CME Group
Technology management at any global, exchange-operating giant is a handful. That challenge is complicated for CME Group by the particular demands of derivatives markets, with their steady stream of new products and ever-growing transaction and data volumes. “Speed, capacity and reliability are what we live and breathe,” says Kevin Kometer, 47, the Chicago-based company’s CIO since 2008. Double digits are the norm: Average daily volume through November 2011, at 13.8 million contracts, was 12 percent ahead of the 2010 period, and November’s $61.9 billion in over-the-counter clearing volume, one of CME’s top growth priorities, beat the October record by 36 percent. For Kometer, who has been with CME since 1994 except for two years with Board of Trade Clearing Corp., the complexity goes beyond keeping systems up and running. Communication and collaboration with network and technology suppliers and customers are essential to anticipating technology trends and market requirements. What’s more, R&D and innovation “are part of our culture,” says Kometer, who serves on the intellectual-property leadership team promoting that cause. With a new data center, CME recently launched a colocation facility to reduce transaction latency. And through a partnership with Brazil’s BM&FBovespa, CME is opening a new systems-development frontier in equity market technology.
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No. 2
Chief Information Officer
CME Group
Technology management at any global, exchange-operating giant is a handful. That challenge is complicated for CME Group by the particular demands of derivatives markets, with their steady stream of new products and ever-growing transaction and data volumes. “Speed, capacity and reliability are what we live and breathe,” says Kevin Kometer, 47, the Chicago-based company’s CIO since 2008. Double digits are the norm: Average daily volume through November 2011, at 13.8 million contracts, was 12 percent ahead of the 2010 period, and November’s $61.9 billion in over-the-counter clearing volume, one of CME’s top growth priorities, beat the October record by 36 percent. For Kometer, who has been with CME since 1994 except for two years with Board of Trade Clearing Corp., the complexity goes beyond keeping systems up and running. Communication and collaboration with network and technology suppliers and customers are essential to anticipating technology trends and market requirements. What’s more, R&D and innovation “are part of our culture,” says Kometer, who serves on the intellectual-property leadership team promoting that cause. With a new data center, CME recently launched a colocation facility to reduce transaction latency. And through a partnership with Brazil’s BM&FBovespa, CME is opening a new systems-development frontier in equity market technology.<<Back to the table|Read the next profile>>