The 2015 Tech 50: Michael Bodson

In 2012, soon after being promoted from COO to CEO of Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.,Michael Bodsonpresided over the heroic rescue of 1 million waterlogged documents left in Superstorm Sandy’s wake. The challenges confronting the premier posttrade utility, which processes $1.6 quadrillion in securities transactions annually, have only escalated from there. The New York–based infrastructure operator and its 57-year-old president and CEO have staked out a forward position in the battle against cybercrime. DTCC last year formed a joint venture with the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center to market Soltra Edge, which streamlines dissemination of threat intelligence among a network of users. Five hundred financial companies have downloaded the system, and 500 in the retail, medical and other industries are looking at it. “It’s a small business but one of the most exciting things we’re doing,” Bodson says. Joint venturing is a recurring theme: DTCC and six banks formed Clarient Global, a data management utility supporting know-your-customer and other regulatory documentation requirements, and DTCC linked up with Euroclear to provide collateral-processing services through DTCC-Euroclear GlobalCollateral. “There’s a realization that a lot of activities are very similar and don’t give you a competitive edge,” says Bodson, who retired from Morgan Stanley as global head of institutional, retail and asset management operations before joining the DTCC executive team in 2007. “In those cases it’s better to work together. Because we’re industry-owned, we’re one of the first places the industry turns to.” The company’s posttrade capabilities and mission to support regulatory compliance and risk management come together in the Global Trade Repository, which maintains some 40 million open derivatives positions and processes 280 million messages a week.

See the full story, “The 2015 Tech 50: Racers to the Edge.”