May 31, 2012

Inside Market Data

Young Leaves NYSE Tech for Bloomberg

Young's sudden departure to become CEO of Bloomberg's EPS unit comes at a time of big changes at NYSE Technologies and Bloomberg's enterprise division.

Stanley Young has resigned as chief executive of NYSE Technologies—the data and technology arm of exchange operator NYSE Euronext—to join Bloomberg’s enterprise products and solutions (EPS) division.

A Bloomberg spokesperson confirms Young will become chief executive of its EPS business—which comprises the vendor’s datafeeds and data distribution platform—reporting to Mark Pesonen, formerly global head of EPS, who is being elevated to chairman of the EPS business at Bloomberg.  Pesonen will continue to oversee the long-term vision of the EPS division, while Young will manage the day-to-day execution and operations of the business, the spokesperson says.

Bloomberg also earlier this year hired Philip Sparacino—former executive vice president of financial services at open-source software vendor Collaborative Software Initiative—to join the EPS group’s product development team (IMD, Jan. 23, 2012).

The hire of Young, along with the vendor’s recent acquisition of enterprise data management software vendor PolarLake, indicates a more targeted approach by Bloomberg to expand its enterprise business, says Douglas B Taylor, managing partner at Burton-Taylor International Consulting.

“This is clearly an area of opportunity for them, particularly at a time when revenue opportunities are harder to find throughout the industry,” Taylor says.  “They have the data and the reputation, so it’s a matter of presenting their products together in a way that interests clients.”

In particular, when approaching firms without an existing enterprise datafeed infrastructure, a strong offering can put Bloomberg on equal footing with rival data provider Thomson Reuters—which has a more established enterprise business—or exchanges, though dislodging an incumbent vendor will still pose a challenge, Taylor adds.  “In the datafeeds business, you’re more deeply embedded, because clients have built their critical systems around your data and your symbology, so with firms new to enterprise datafeeds, there’s certainly opportunity for Bloomberg to step in and become the incumbent.”

Young’s departure from NYSE Technologies, which he had headed since its inception in 2009, follows a reorganization of the group that included a new executive structure that created four customer-focused business lines—Broker-Dealers, Buy Side, High-Tech and Vendors, and Market Operators—at the start of this year (IMD, April 9).  In addition, the vendor had also restructured its products and services into separate solutions groups, comprising data solutions, software solutions, infrastructure solutions and platform solutions.

At the time, Young said that NYSE Technologies was formed through a series of acquisitions, including Nyfix and Wombat, and was therefore very “product-centered,” and while the approach worked well initially, moving to a more client-focused structure will help accelerate data use and trading activity as it works towards its stated aim of doubling revenues to $1 billion by 2015.

The result of the previous reorganization also resulted in the departures of other executives from NYSE Technologies, including global head of market data Mark Schaedel, head of transactions services Bob Moitoso, former Nyfix managing director Chris Walsh and Asia COO Peter Tierney.  Jenny Nayar was then appointed interim head of market data, replacing Schaedel, who has set up a data management consultancy dubbed The Coba Project, which will focus on post-trade transparency and broader pan-European market transparency issues.

"We thank Stanley for his leadership in developing our Technologies business into a leading platform serving the capital markets community," says Dominique Cerutti, president and deputy chief executive of NYSE Euronext, in a statement. "Our technology business is transitioning into its next phase of growth and development, and we remain focused on delivering innovative products and services that unlock potential for our customers and execute on our own community strategy."

NYSE Technologies officials declined to comment beyond the prepared statement.
by Vicki Chan, Anthony Malakian