Ted Myerson

Age: 35

Company: FTEN

Year founded: 2001

Site: ften.com

What FTEN does: FTEN offers highspeed trading, risk management, market data, trade surveillance and compliance solutions. FTEN’s technology processes millions of securities transactions globally, including over 20 percent of the entire US Equities daily volume.

How he’s changing the game: “When I worked in the hedge fund industry, I saw the complexity of the capital markets and the increasing complexity of trading strategies,” says Myerson. “There was a clear need to find technology to reconcile the different trade data formats, to consolidate the trading data from different asset classes, and to leap-frog the speed at which everything was processed.” But it was the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, that moved Myerson into action. “When the terrorists took aim at damaging the US financial market by striking at its symbolic heart—the World Trade Center—we decided the very next day to formalize a company,” says Myerson. “We wanted to focus the company on reviving and protecting the marketplace.” What sets FTEN’s technology apart from financial enterprise software that existed in the past is that they help clients manage access to trading venues and adapt to regulatory changes. But unlike outsourced services, the clients keep the controls.

Recent highlights: The company recently expanded to Europe and Canada, and have doubled the size of their team. FTEN achieved a ranking in the top 50 of Inc’s. 500 Fastest Growing Private Companies in the US, with a growth rate of nearly 3,000 percent over three years—from 2005 revenue of $407,323 to 2008 revenue of 12.1 million dollars.

What’s next: FTEN is planning to launch an Asian operation in the coming year. They are also working on offering more solutions to eliminate systemic risk across the financial industry.

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