Thornton Academy Postscripts Alumni Magazine Spring 2015 | Page 4

How Jennifer Hadiaris TA ’01 & Harvard ’05 w
distinction on Wall Street for helping to
of banks had those teams because
they didn’t think it mattered to pay
attention to fiber optic cables [below
ground], high-speed lasers [above
ground], and trading patterns.” Well,
now they do.
Since trading information has
become much more complex—
traveling through fiber-optic cables
to 11 different stock exchanges
— the “market structure team” on
which Jenny worked has to work to
figure out how the New York Stock
Exchange, NASDAQ, and all other
exchanges operate and how they
are connected to one another. “We
had to figure out the Wall Street
ecosystem—how the connections
between exchanges functioned
so we could create a solution that
protected our orders. The electronic
trading team developed a product
called ‘Thor’ and then patented it.”
To say that everyone sat up and
took notice is an understatement.
Katsuyama launched a new
exchange called IEX whose aim
was to force orders to reach all of
the exchanges at exactly the same
nozzle and when
“ ark pool toxicity.” “Rigged pick up the your tank. Exceptyou
moment. Clients of RBC could buy
start filling
that
stocks at the price they initially
underbelly.” “Predatory
it was happening over and over.
trading.” Far from snippets on the Someone was jumping the queue and aimed for, rather than get “scalped”
for a higher price. Katsuyama
back of a suspense novel, these are the benefitting from it. To the tune of
became an unassuming Canadian
terms being used to describe a Wall
billions.
hero of a 60 Minutes episode and the
Street financial culture that has turned
Wild West. Enter stage right a onceLuckily for Katsuyama, he was able to protagonist of Michael Lewis’ New
York Times best-selling book “Flash
obscure Canadian banker at Royal Bank pull together a team of people from
of Canada, named Brad Katsuyama.
all different backgrounds who rose to Boys: A Wall Street Revolt” that
exposed “rigged” high-frequency
As a popular episode of 60 Minutes
the team’s challenge of figuring out
trading.
explained this year, Katsuyama noticed how the market was being rigged.
that, whenever he tried to “execute
One of those team members was a
Jennifer went from being on the
a trade,” the stock price moved just
young woman—Jennifer “Jenny”
market structure team to running it
before his order went through. This
Hadiaris ’01 (at far right in photo
globally. She also earned recognition
is a little like having the price of your
above) “I joined the RBC market
as a Rising Star Innovator on Wall
gasoline change between when you
structure team in 2010. Not a lot

L to R: Eleanor Ogden (of Morgan Stanley), Sophia Lee (of IEX), Jennifer
Hadiaris ’01 (of RBC) were featured on the cover of Traders Magazine as
Wall Street Women 2014 Innovators (photo by David Yellen Photography)

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