The 2017 Tech 40: Michael Cooper

The ease of access and favorable economics of cloud computing only begin to explain the revolution it is enabling, according to Michael Cooper. The 54-year-old, who has been watching the cloud unfold since he joined Radianz in 2001, says the technology provides "the ability to implement significant changes quickly, to experiment ad infinitum and with more certainty." The startup's shared telecommunications infrastructure was a precursor of cloud utilities, like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, that emerged later in that decade. Radianz's specialization in financial services made it attractive to the U.K.'s BT Group, which bought the company from Reuters Group for $175 million in 2005. BT Radianz Cloud now offers a high-performance network connecting thousands of global institutions and market participants accessing applications and services from more than 400 providers. This year BT completed the purchase of IP Trade, a provider of unified communications technology for trading floors. Cooper, BT Radianz's chief technology officer since 2010, says that "it is obligatory for anyone in this industry to focus on security and the cyberthreat landscape," noting that BT commits significant resources to cybersecurity.