The 2015 Trading Technology 40: Bill Chow and Richard Leung

Shanghai–Hong Kong Stock Connect, the so-called through train for trading between the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges, went live November 17 after a series of delays. But those were mainly regulatory and political in nature. For this ambitious program, a cornerstone of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing chief executive Charles Li’s cross-border game plan, the technology performed without a hitch. Credit the HK$3 billion ($387 million) Orion project, a comprehensive IT overhaul that co-CTOsBill Chow and Richard Leunghave been shepherding since 2012. Stock Connect was just the most visible example of the flexibility and scalability of Orion, which touches all asset classes and stages of the trading cycle and involved integrations of data and clearing systems from the likes of Calypso Technology and Nasdaq OMX Group. Since the through train started allowing both international and domestic investors to bypass China’s strict capital controls, northbound volumes — trading originating in Hong Kong — have exceeded southbound totals. Hopes are high that southbound activity will pick up as mainland investors increase their exposure to offshore equities. “HKEx’s IT group is ready to support any system changes for Stock Connect,” says Chow, 58, a 22-year veteran with the company. Leung, 51, who joined in 2012 after three years as CTO of Chi-X Global, notes, “The program is expandable and could be a model for other asset classes.”

1	2	3	4	5
Kevin Kometer CME Group	Richard Prager BlackRock	Raymond Tierney III Bloomberg Tradebook	Jonathan Ross KCG Holdings	Charles Vice Intercontinental Exchange
6	7	8	9	10
Chris Isaacson BATS Global Markets	Bradley Peterson Nasdaq OMX Group	Brad Levy MarkitSERV	Dan Keegan Citi	Ronald DePoalo Fidelity Institutional
11	12	13	14	15
Gerard Beatty Goldman Sachs Group	Gerald O'Connell CBOE Holdings	Brenda Hoffman TMX Group	Billy Hult Tradeweb Markets	Nicholas Themelis MarketAxess Holdings
16	17	18	19	20
Bina Kalola Bank of America Merrill Lynch	Gil Mandelzis EBS-BrokerTec (ICAP)	Steven Randich Financial Industry Regulatory Authority	Jerry Dobner GFI Group	Michael Liberman BlueMountain Capital Management
21	22	23	24	25
Bill Chow and Richard Leung Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing	Jamie Selway Investment Technology Group	Brad Katsuyama IEX Group	John Mackay (Mack) Gill MillenniumIT	Jamil Nazarali Citadel Execution Services
26	27	28	29	30
Robert Cornish International Securities Exchange	Tyler Moeller andJoshua Walksy Broadway Technology	Rishi Nangalia REDI Holdings	Manoj Narang Tradeworx, Thesys Technologies	Oki Matsumoto Monex Group
31	32	33	34	35
Alasdair Haynes Aquis Exchange	Veronica Augustsson Cinnober Financial Technology	Stu Taylor Algomi	Luís Otávio Saliba Furtado BM&FBovespa	Tal Cohen Chi-X Global Holdings
36	37	38	39	40
Donal Byrne Corvil	R. Cromwell Coulson OTC Markets Group	Alfred Eskandar Portware	理查德Korhammer SR Labs	Hazem Dawani OptionsCity Software