The 2015 Tech 50: Richard McVey

In 2012 fixed-income technology innovator MarketAxess Holdings introduced Open Trading, an anonymous, all-to-all model designed to help address the credit markets’ liquidity challenges. Chairman and CEORichard McVeyadmits he wasn’t sure back then how it would fly, and Open Trading had its share of outside skeptics. But it has turned out to be a major success driver across product classes for New York–based MarketAxess, which in the first quarter posted record revenue of $77 million, up 21 percent year-over-year, while boosting its share of U.S. high-grade bond trading to 15.6 percent from 13.4 percent. Open Trading, which is a single, inclusive pool for money managers, dealers, hedge funds and other market participants, accounted for 9 percent of MarketAxess activity in the first quarter, compared with 2 percent a year earlier. To put that in perspective, the largest dealer on MarketAxess has an 11 to 12 percent share. “We’re proving that all-to-all trading in corporate bonds works,” says McVey, 55, a former head of fixed-income sales at J.P. Morgan & Co. who has headed MarketAxess since it emerged from the bank’s LabMorgan incubator in 2000. “It’s a valuable new source of liquidity for investors and dealers,” McVey adds. April marked the second anniversary of an Open Trading alliance withBlackRock(seeRobert Goldstein, No. 5), which early this year was extended to Europe. A pickup in volatility that began late last year “is driving investors and dealers to the MarketAxess platform,” McVey says. “They get busy, and they know they can move risk here.”

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