Traders Magazine spoke with John Palazzo, Chief Operating Officer, IntelligentCross ATS, who won COO of the Year at the 2023 Markets Choice Awards.
Briefly describe your background and career to date.
I am one of the original group of founding employees when Imperative Execution and IntelligentCross were born, which is truly exciting to me. I had been Managing Director of UBS’ Electronic Trading Products with direct responsibilities for the execution desk, and their #1 (by volume) US ATS, including sales, operations and compliance. My career in the equity trading markets stretches back to Instinet in the 1990s. You could say that the alternative markets have always been my home turf.
What are your strengths and how do you fit those into an irreplaceable role in the company?
I struggle with the word “irreplaceable” because it’s not just about me; I’m surrounded by a team of amazingly talented and dedicated people. And frankly, I wouldn’t presume to think of myself, or anyone, as being totally irreplaceable. We should all try to maintain some healthy humility in this industry (laughs). But I thank you for the sentiment.
If I had to pick key characteristics that have led to my personal success, I guess they would be: one, keeping my eyes on the biggest priorities – which are to keep our clients happy, and always do the right thing from a market efficiency and compliance perspective. If you look after those things, the rest will fall into place. And two, I try to make sure I treat everyone with respect and empathy.
Especially when things are manic and the markets are crazy. I often say you can “never over communicate” with one another in this business, it’s impossible. If you remember to listen to others, a lot of common pitfalls can be avoided. Three, it really helps to be passionate about what you do and who works alongside you. I believe in the principles that we live by at IntelligentCross. If your work doesn’t mean something important to you, then your days are going to feel a lot longer than you’d like and you will probably not bring as much passion and creativity to bear.
For you personally, what’s your greatest achievement?
On a personal level, I’d have to say that it is getting my wife to marry me and raising my terrific children.
From a professional perspective, working alongside Roman Ginis, Scott Graczyk and all of my colleagues to bring IntelligentCross to life is at the top of my list. We started at zero just over five years ago and are now ranked consistently in the top three ATSs in the US. We’ve also successfully brought a new model to the marketplace, which is incredibly thrilling.
Is there anything out there that market participants are not paying enough attention to?
We believe the marketplace would benefit if more available price data – specifically our ASPEN displayed prices through our IQX data feed – was uniformly visible to all market participants. This additional data would better inform price discovery and improve real-time valuations – but it currently doesn’t make it into everyone’s hands. It’s out there – some market participants are accessing this additional data, but not all, and it is not factored into everyone’s trading decisions. This is inefficient; greater transparency would be better for all investors and the overall marketplace, and it’s something we believe should be addressed. We’re running a campaign to raise awareness about it now.
How are disruptive technologies impacting capital markets?
It’s funny that the marketplace calls innovations “disruptive” – when in fact many of the new technologies are being designed to improve market efficiency and not simply challenge it. I’m a big supporter of the value of competition and challenging the status quo. It pushes the market toward lower costs, greater transparency, and greater efficiency.
We’ve seen a tremendous amount of improvement by way of machine learning and A.I.; the evolution of blockchain technology has shortened the clearing and settlement cycle and freed up capital faster and more efficiently to investors. More robust computer processing capabilities have delivered dramatically improved quantitative analysis into the hands of more participants. And the digitalization of the marketplace is broadening access and removing time zone and geographic barriers. These opportunities provide more investors with ever-expanding chances to seek alpha, and as more capital flows through the system, it stimulates real growth for the economies, companies, and people all over the world. How can we not like that?
